Elvis Lives
Finally caught up with THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, in which the editor of French Elle suffers a massive neurological kerfuffle which paralyses everything but one eyelid, transforming him into a sentient version of Errol Morris’ Interrotron, the camera everybody talks to.
The late great Jean-Pierre Cassel.
It’s a fine film, directed by Julian Schnabel with some interesting touches. The idea of the hero as P.O.V. is a sound one, probably the only way to make this particular story visible. There’s not much point cutting to reaction shots very often since the hero is unable to react with anything but one eye. (They sew up his bad eye to stop it going off. Ew.)
This is what you see when you get your eye sewn up. You can thank me later.
But as Hitchcock observed, endless subjective camera without reaction shots doesn’t really make us feel we’re the character in the story, it’s more alienating than that. We feel like voyeurs inside his head. Which is kind of what he’s been reduced to, so it all makes sense.
Schnabel is guilty of that modern movie crime, borrowing music from another movie, in this case the theme from LES QUATRES CENT COUPS, which he accompanies with SHOTS borrowed from the same film. But as Georges Delerue’s title theme reaches its melancholy conclusion, over a flashback of the hero, in pre-camera mode, driving to meet his kids, it all works in an oneirically beautiful way, capturing that quality Borges was pleased to be the first person to write about in a poem: the sensation of doing something for the last time.
Mrs. Roman Polanski, Emmanuelle Seigneur appears as the camera’s wife. A fine actress, whose brave and multi-faceted perf in BITTER MOON didn’t really get the credit it deserved (watch B.M. as a very black comedy and it’s a much better film than might at first appear). And who’s this as the hero in childhood flashback?
Walk like an Egyptian.
Yes, it’s little Elvis Polanski, Emmanuelle’s son. Little Elvis first popped up as a walk-on Fauntleroy in OLIVER TWIST. I do hope he continues with his acting career, since I get a kick out of his name. Child abuse can take many forms. I do hope Roman at least plied the infant with champagne and Quaaludes before naming him that. It’s the least he could do.
July 10, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Tsai Ming-Liang is fa more obsessed with Les Quatres Cents Coups than Julian Schnabel, so take it up with him.
Really liked The Diving Bell and the Butterfly enormously. The life Schnabel found in Bauby’s head is far more expansive than that of the vast majority of protagonists we see in movies.
As for Mrs. Polanski, she’s quite wonderful in La Vie en Rose (aka. La Mome) as well.
I’m seeing that documentary about her husband tonight.
July 10, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I’m SUCH a novice on Chinese and Taiwanese cinema…
Am keen to watch Schnabel’s other stuff now, which I somehow missed.
Report back on the Polanski doc! My fear is, in a quest for simplicity, they boost the wrong done to RP at the expense of acknowledging the extent of his criminality. But hopefully they can strike a balance.
July 10, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Oh, and congratulations! Yours was my 3,000th comment!
July 10, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Wow, really?
The documentary reportedly strikes a balance, and is full of information heretofore given next to no light. Judge Rittenband was apparently going to throw Roman in the slammer for good, and even the girl thought this was going too far.
As for Taiwanese cinema the Must-See is Tsai Ming-Liang’s I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone — easily the most lavish tribute a filmmaker has ever made to his boyfriend.
July 10, 2008 at 8:30 pm
>As for Taiwanese cinema the Must-See is Tsai Ming-Liang’s I Don’t Want To Sleep Alone — easily the most lavish tribute a filmmaker has ever made to his boyfriend.
^^^ What David E says! It’s a contemporary masterpiece.
July 10, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Yes, number 3000. You win a small pirate hat and a bottle of Chardonnay. Collect them next time you’re in town.
Just added the Ming-Liang to rental list.
July 11, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Saw Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. Quite a good film and essential for anyone interested in Polanski.
The filmmaker, Marina Zenovich, was quite fortunate in that there is a wealth of film to work with. Activity in around the court in Santa Monica was covered extensively. Plus there’s tons of footage of Polanski from all over the place, none of which I’d ever seen before, including great shots of him directing Sharon Tate in The Fearless Vampire Killers. Plus there’s a scene of the girl’s mother acting in a courtroom scene in some television movie or other. The girl herself , now a grown woman, is interviewed along with many others, some of whom you’ve heard of others no one has. Suffice to say the mother was ambitious and should never have left Polanski alone with the girl. Still he DID cross the line and she was perfectly justificed in going to the authorities. The problem is that she would have had to deal with testifying in open court, and didn’t want to. So deals of one sort or another were being crafted by the defense and the D.A. Originally there were a whole slate of charges. Polanski finally settled to admitting to one count of unlawful sex with a minor. And this is where it gets complicated. Rittenband wanted to send him to Chino for a 50 day evaluation and consider that the sentence. But when word got out and he was criticized Rittenband panicked and shifted — and kept shifting. He was a Major Hollywood Groupie, having dealt with many actors in the past. He was obsessed with appearances, and tried to stage manage everything — bringing defense and prosecution into chambers, telling them what they were to say in open court and what his response would be. It all grew so chaotic Polanski simply got out of Dodge.
The man’s life is astounding. His parents were killed by the Nazis and he remade himself to become a filmmaker, first in Poland and then in France and England. Then Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown made him THE director in the U.S. Between those artistic triumphs Charles Manson had his wife brutally murdered. The film remnded me that until Manson was captured the U.S. press was full of stories claiming Polanski had committed the killings himself!
Now in France he’s re-started his life once again. He’s 74 with a lovely and talented wife and new family. I can’t imagine what can happen to him next.
July 11, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Well, in spite of what he’s done, I hope he enjoys a successful and happy old age! He’s basically had enough suffering.
“If you offered me the chance to live my life again, I wouldn’t.” ~ RP. A strange statement, I always thought: usually the idea of the offer is that you’re free to change things in your life, armed with foreknowledge. You don’t have to just suffer it all again the same! But I guess, in Polanski’s case, what could he have done, as a kid, against the Nazis?
Yes, there was massive press speculation about Polanski, despite the fact that he was out of the country when the murders took place! The press conference he gave is desperately moving.
July 11, 2008 at 10:20 pm
After seeing The Pianist I know what he means. The scene of Nazis randomly — and matter-of-factly — having their Jewish captives lie down and then shooting them in the head is indelible. He’s been this close to death more times in his life than any of us can imagine.