Julian Schnabel Photo by Mighty Cub Enterprises

Ringing His Bell

Artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel holds a poolside pajamarama for his new film.

by Glenn Kenny

Julian Schnabel first told me that his next movie project would be an adaptation of the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in early 2001, while I was interviewing the painter-filmmaker about his picture Before Night Falls. It sounded like something to look forward to. The book is the memoir of one-time French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a huge stroke in 1995 that left him completely paralyzed — except for one eyelid. It's with that eyelid that he "dictated" the book, an autobiography and an account of his illness in which the titular bell is a metaphor for his physical condition and the butterfly is what his imagination can create. Word trickled out shortly afterwards that Johnny Depp, who had been in Before Night Falls, would be playing Bauby. After that — nothing.

In April of 2006, I ran into Schnabel at a jury lunch for the Tribeca Film Festival. I said, "Hey, what's happening on Diving Bell?" The ever-voluble Schnabel, whose outsize personality has outlasted his tenure at the New York Art world's enfant terrible, threw up his hands. I recall that the words "terrible" and "nightmare" as well as the phrase "never make another film again" flew from his mouth. And then we had to go to our separate tables and eat.

And yet, a little over a year later he's here at Cannes with a film of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly that even its detractors (there are a few, although the film has been very well-received overall and has just been picked up for American distribution by Miramax) would have to admit is a fully realized one. I find it beautiful, involving, and moving with a magnificent lead performance from Mathieu Amalric.

Schnabel, ever-resplendent in blue pajamas, sat poolside at Cannes' Hotel Martinez entertaining journalists' questions, and he was reliably larger-than-life and frank, whether running down an international producer who burned him on another movie project ("I found [him] to be a total idiot, who made a terrible film; [he] took a great book and just ruined it, and I told him what was gonna happen..."), getting irritated with the movie fans cheering outside the hedge walls ("I'd like to get up and tell them to shut the fuck up. Shut up!"), or charming us scribes (Journo: "Can I ask a question?" Schnabel: "You can ask two questions").