Toronto and NYFF preview. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

"A textbook example of a director prizing himself over his material, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly finds its true story about paralyzed Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby hopelessly smudged with artist-turned-filmmaker Julian Schnabel's fingerprints," writes Nick Schager at Slant. "It's Johnny Got His Gun (or, at least, the portions used in Metallica's 'One' video) via My Left Foot, stylistically Miramax-ized to within an inch of its life."

Updated through 9/27.

"Julian Schnabel's third feature is an almost excessively beautiful aestheticization of misery," writes Karina Longworth at the SpoutBlog. "[T]he film is strikingly painterly in a way that Schnabel's actual paintings often aren't."

"This was the most purely emotional experience I had at the festival, and it makes me think the movies rather than art may be Schnabel's enduring legacy," writes the Boston Globe's Scott Heller.

"What makes The Diving Bell and The Butterfly unique is that Schnabel has taken an idea that, while perfect for literature, seems antithetical to the cinema and turned it into a thing of absolute beauty," writes Tom Hall. "The story of an interior life, forged by a terrible medical condition, that is essentially an act of self-reinvention."

At the IFC Blog, Alison Willmore finds it "all bittersweet enough to be bearable."

ST VanAirsdale catches Schnabel's appearance at a pre-New York Film Festival press conference.

In Esquire, Julian Schabel sings praises of Anne Consigny, Emmanuelle Seigner and Marie-Josée Croze.

Earlier: Reviews from Cannes.

Update, 9/24: "The imaginative promiscuity in Schnabel's paintings that has so galled critics has here found a context to which it is perfectly suited," writes John Homans in a profile of Schnabel for New York.

Update, 9/27: Nathaniel R: "12 Things I Learned (or was reminded of but had forgotten) While Listening to Julian Schnabel at the Press Conference and Watching His New Film The Diving Bell and Butterfly (and how I feel about those things I learned and remembered)."

Posted by dwhudson at September 21, 2007 3:25 PM