Almighty Schnabel

Just as loyal readers of Time Like Water dislike the film adaptation, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is clearly more of a book fan than a movie fan, after all, Gene Bobby's touching story is through his personal "Writing" is done instead of controlling camera movement by blinking an eye. In reading the original work word by word, we can intuitively feel the hardships of "writing", and no matter how superb the picture expression is in this regard, it is incomparable. After considering the author's extremely slow writing speed, I couldn't help but slow down the pace of reading.
Fortunately, the film can make up for the weakness of a certain link through other means. Director Julian Schnabel used his own advantages to complete this task very well. As one of the most important painters in contemporary America, Schnabel's ability to control static images is undeniably superior. We can see the colorful glaciers, Gene Bobby sitting alone in the waves, and the closed, icy diving bell. . It is a pity that the painter Schnabel failed to integrate the beautiful pictures into the storyline, and the beautiful pictures we see are relatively independent of the development of the story. Another advantage of the neo-expressionist painter Schnabel is the unconventional postmodern temperament. The subjective lens of the protagonist Gene Bobby occupies most of the film, which is boring and direct and silent at the same time. The powerful power of the audience seems to experience the pain of a locked-in syndrome. At the same time, the fragments of memories that appear momentarily become treasures that embellish it, each time it is unforgettable, and the connection between reality, memory and fantasy is smooth and free of jerky feeling. After completing three biographical films, Schnabel has become a master at sketching human figures.
How to judge the quality of a film focusing on disabled people, a simple and effective way is whether the film respects disabled people and how to show this respect. Locked-in syndrome sufferers are paralyzed and move only their eyes, and Schnabel doesn't overplay that, diverting the audience's attention from their incomplete bodies to what they're doing. Except for a few necessary partial features and a few short lines, it is difficult to detect Gene Bobby's complaints about unfair fate and the pity of those around him. They all quickly accepted the reality and acted immediately. Both Schnabel and Gene Bobby knew that self-esteem and self-love should always be the benchmark for artistic expression in the process of presenting moving stories to audiences.

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