It is revealed that Bauby had been editor of the popular French fashion magazine Elle, and that he had a deal to write a book (which was originally going to be based on The Count of Monte Cristo but from a female perspective). He also fantasizes, imagining beaches, mountains, the Empress Eugénie and an erotic feast with one of his transcriptionists. Gradually, the film's restricted point of view broadens out, and the viewer begins to see Bauby from 'outside', in addition to experiencing incidents from his past, including a visit to Lourdes. Bauby cannot speak, but he develops a system of communication with his speech and language therapist by blinking his left eye as she reads a list of letters to laboriously spell out his messages, letter by letter.

At first, the viewer primarily hears Bauby's 'thoughts' (he thinks that he is speaking but no one hears him), which are inaccessible to the other characters (who are seen through his one functioning eye).Ī speech therapist and physical therapist try to help Bauby become as functional as possible. After an initial rather over-optimistic analysis from one doctor, a neurologist explains that he has locked-in syndrome, an extremely rare condition in which the patient is almost completely physically paralyzed, but remains mentally normal. The film opens as Bauby wakes from his three-week coma in a hospital in Berck-sur-Mer, France. The first third of the film is told from the main character's, Jean-Dominique Bauby ( Mathieu Amalric), or Jean-Do as his friends call him, first person perspective. It ranks in BBC's 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century. Several critics later listed it as one of the best films of its decade. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and the César Awards, and received four Oscar nominations. Based on Jean-Dominique Bauby's 1997 memoir of the same name, the film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ( French: Le Scaphandre et le Papillon) is a 2007 biographical drama film directed by Julian Schnabel and written by Ronald Harwood.

The diving bell and the butterfly book