OVERALL LOOK
The film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, had a lot of camera
movement. The camera angle moves from low to high angles and incorporates
the Dutch angle to make the character's thoughts more visual and defined.
I think the cinematographer, Janusz Kamiński and the director Julian Schnabel, was very fond of using this angle to express
the main character's, Jean-Dominique Bauby, sense of confusion and distress as
he is learning the results of his stroke. Julian Schnabel is a painter first and a film maker second. He incorporates his artistic talents into the film. Each mise en scene is an image in itself and each tells a story.
It shows the audience that Mr. Bauby is disoriented and seeing
things at an off angle and not in the norm. The framing of the film was
also very significant. It shows the loneliness of Mr. Bauby stuck in his
own body.
He is in the middle of a vast ocean, on a platform with the
emptiness around him. This movie is mainly made so spectacular, not in
the story itself only, but also in how it was expressed to us visually.
The lighting, shown below, shows the red light as a symbolism of
adultery, for example the book The Scarlett Letter, and the erie lighting of
the chapel, showing his feelings of distance from God and answered prayers.
IMAGES
A lot of the images show the imagination and thoughts of Mr. Bauby.
As he is left alone waiting, in the chair, in the bed, on the physical
therapy slab. He is always living in his head and without his verbal
usage we can see what he sees and thinks. Luckily he has an active imagination
and can survive living in his body.
SHOT LENGTHS
Shot lengths are used sometimes to show long time periods for the
characters in the movie, or also for times that seem to go faster. It
helps the audience know when the character is having a moment of thought.
Like the shots on the pictures of the wall in the movie, show the main
character's long times of being alone and bored.
SHOT TYPES
As mentioned before there are many uses of different shots used in
this film. The long shot is used many times to show the distance that Mr.
Bauby feels from other people. Also close shots are used when he feels
some sense of closeness or maybe sometimes an invasion of personal space.
The doctors coming in super close to examine his eye and sewing it up was
an example of invasion of space.
CAMERA ANGLES
Most of the shots in the movie are POV shots because we are seeing
how the main character sees. The angles of his head show the angles that
we see from. The high angles show him seeing his life pass from a
distance, like when he is remembering his past in a positive light.
COMPOSITION
The composition of the movie seems very unbalanced, but in the end
it help to build the movie in a way where the audience is closer to the main
character and his feelings. The scenes with his ex-wife and his while she
translates to his mistress what he is saying the frame is made where the
audience focuses on her and the phone the mistress is on. Then it pans
over to all three of them in the frame. It shows the focus on the
relationship between the three of them.
CAMERA MOVEMENT
The scene where Mr. Bauby is in his wheel chair on the platform in
the middle of the ocean shows him alone and far. Then it uses a zolly to
make the background further away, while at the same time making Mr. Bauby the
main focus.
CINEMATOGRAPHY STYLE
For the purposes of this movie the vast uses of the different
cinematography style builds the sense of life and effect the stroke has on Mr.
Bauby. The extremeness from the the steady frames during his
"normal" life and the disoriented frames of his life after. The
only times the camera is steady, other than the times where he is remembering
his past, are the times where he is writing the book and when it becomes a norm
to his everyday life. Or when other characters are interacting with him
where the camera is not in his point of view. Janusz Kamiński is amazing in his use of the
camera and Julian Schnabel is a master of his
craft.
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