Film

Judging from Schnabel’s version of events, in 1995 French Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby awoke after a stroke to find his entire field of vision looked like a Julian Schnabel film. Remarkably, Bauby—whose paralysis spared only his left eye—blinked out an entire memoir, finally succumbing to heart failure two days after its publication. Working with Pianist screenwriter Ronald Harwood, Schnabel treats this amazing real-life story as a testament to the importance of memory and the boundlessness of human imagination.

The question is: Whose imagination? Bauby (played in the film by Amalric) reportedly wanted to have his life made into a movie, but his book is plainspoken, rueful and occasionally darkly funny. Schnabel co-opts the material for the cinematic equivalent of Wagnerian opera: He indulges in a ludicrously romanticized notion of poststroke rehab, replete with a succession of bombshell aides who seem ripped from the pages of Bauby’s magazine. Janusz Kaminski’s first-person camerawork demonstrates awesome dexterity and care (watch the tilting and the scrupulous limiting of perspective). But is there some reason why each shot had to be more distractingly gorgeous than the last? It’s impossible not to be moved by Bauby’s resilience. It’s a pity the filmmaker keeps getting in the way.