The blink of an eye

Diving Bell is a loving portrait of an amazing writer | Meghan Keane

Bauby’s transcriber, Claude (Anne Cosigny), shows him the finished book.

Fuzzy images and confusion open The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel's new film based on the amazing real-life story of French writer Jean-Dominique Bauby.

As Bauby (Mathieu Almaric) begins to focus his vision, it becomes clear that the setting is a hospital room. Doctors and loved ones circle, expressing relief as he regains consciousness. But as they continue to repeat questions that he has answered, it becomes clear to him, and us, that they cannot hear him.

Until this point, Bauby had been the well-known editor of Elle magazine. But in 1995 he suffered a stroke that left him unable to move his body or speak. Afflicted with a condition known depressingly as locked-in syndrome, he only had control over his left eyelid and he died two years later.