2007. dir Julian Schnabel, starring Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze. French with subtitles.
Seen it before? No.
What would it be like to have your brain work perfectly well but have no other function (the ability to move or speak) available other than blinking? Watch this movie as it gives you a sad look at what happens if you a stroke and are confined to your body. Thankfully Jean-Dominuque Bauby has a team of people ready to help him communicate even if it is painstaking and through blinking.
I would go absolutely crazy if I had locked in syndrome...I would probably blink 'just kill me already'...but JDB was able to dictate an entire book! How awesome is that?!?!? I felt for his poor father and his three children. His girlfriend annoyed me. I liked the relationship he formed with his therapist. She was truly an angel to him.
It's not necessarily a tear jerker but I was pretty sad during the movie, when not completely irritated with how the director shot the film. JDB does give hope for people who have locked in syndrome...if you work hard enough you CAN communicate.
See it again? No thanks but maybe I'll change my mind in a few years.
Read the book? Yes, I think I will.
Showing posts with label The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
#98 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: E, S, A, R, I, N, T...
2007. dir Julian Schnabel, starring Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze. French with subtitles.
Seen it before? No.
This is the sad tale of Jean-Dominque Bauby, a magazine editor who had a stroke one day, and woke up 3 weeks later with his mind intact, but everything else paralyzed except one eye. Thus he was able to communicate using a series of blinks: an aide would read the alphabet in order of letter frequency, and he would blink when she got to the letter he wanted. That doesn't seem like a very intelligent system. He dictated an entire book this way at about 0.5 WPM.
The movie is a dramatization of the writing of the book, interspersed with flashbacks and fantasy sequences. Much of it is shown in blurry tilted POV shots, I guess to make you empathize with Bauby's condition. Bauby is played by Mathieu Amalric, best known to American audiences as the bad guy in the Bond movie Quantum Of Solace. (side note: That movie sucked. His evil plan was to raise the price of water in Bolivia? Who the hell cares? I ask for one simple thing in my Bond movies, and that is to have a death satellite with a frickin laser beam attached.)
Position on the list: 206
In case I ever get "locked-in syndrome": I have a better plan. Write up a grid of letters like this:
E T I H P B
A O S R Y K
N R U W J Z
D L F Q X
C M V #
I'll blink the row number, then the column number. So "R" would be two blinks, then four blinks. OK? Seems like this would be quicker than reading the entire damn alphabet over and over.
Seen it before? No.
This is the sad tale of Jean-Dominque Bauby, a magazine editor who had a stroke one day, and woke up 3 weeks later with his mind intact, but everything else paralyzed except one eye. Thus he was able to communicate using a series of blinks: an aide would read the alphabet in order of letter frequency, and he would blink when she got to the letter he wanted. That doesn't seem like a very intelligent system. He dictated an entire book this way at about 0.5 WPM.
The movie is a dramatization of the writing of the book, interspersed with flashbacks and fantasy sequences. Much of it is shown in blurry tilted POV shots, I guess to make you empathize with Bauby's condition. Bauby is played by Mathieu Amalric, best known to American audiences as the bad guy in the Bond movie Quantum Of Solace. (side note: That movie sucked. His evil plan was to raise the price of water in Bolivia? Who the hell cares? I ask for one simple thing in my Bond movies, and that is to have a death satellite with a frickin laser beam attached.)
Position on the list: 206
In case I ever get "locked-in syndrome": I have a better plan. Write up a grid of letters like this:
E T I H P B
A O S R Y K
N R U W J Z
D L F Q X
C M V #
I'll blink the row number, then the column number. So "R" would be two blinks, then four blinks. OK? Seems like this would be quicker than reading the entire damn alphabet over and over.
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