Diving Bell and the Butterfly fans, take note: Spout is giving away a limited edition one-sheet poster, designed by Julian Schnabel, with an original poem by the painter/filmmaker imprinted on one side. We’ve pasted a detail of the poster above; you can see a larger view here. It’s a very cool prize, but we only have one to give away, so we want to make sure we give it to the right person.
So here’s what we’re going to do: sometime between now and January 29, tell us in 200-500 words why you love Schnabel and/or Diving Bell, why you deserve to win the poster, and where you’ll put it if we pick you. Post your answer, or a link to your answer on your own blog, in the comments to this post. We will review entries the last week of January and announce a winner on Friday, February 1. Good luck!
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Damn, that’s a beautiful poster. Here’s my entry, throwing my hat in the ring to win that, partially adapted from the much longer entry I wrote on the film at my own blog:
I love Diving Bell because it is one of the most wonderfully sustained exercises in empathy I can remember encountering in the cinema. Its first-person opening half-hour. The effect of this opening is claustrophobic, but is probably the only way that Schnabel can effectively communicate some sense of what his film’s protagonist must be experiencing. The film takes a potentially melodramatic and tear-jerking story, its subject readymade for a Hallmark movie of the week or an Oscar-bait prestige picture, and instead has made a work of stunning visual ingenuity and intellectual introspection. Like the diving helmet of the title, a metaphor for the hero’s sensations of entrapment and suffocation, the film submerges the viewer in a strictly internal world, examining ideas of sensation/mind interaction, creativity, and communication. This is a striking, sensual, genuinely moving work of art.
If I win the poster, I’ll be getting it framed and hanging it in a place of honor right above my bed. Many of the film’s images have haunted my dreams anyway since I saw it, so I might as well commemorate its evocative impact with a tangible signifier.
Sorry, I messed up that entry a bit due to the weird way the comments box is showing up in my browser today, cutting off parts of the post from view. It should read like this:
I love Diving Bell because it is one of the most wonderfully sustained exercises in empathy I can remember encountering in the cinema. Its first-person opening half-hour is claustrophobic, but is probably the only way that Schnabel can effectively communicate some sense of what his film’s protagonist must be experiencing. The film takes a potentially melodramatic and tear-jerking story, its subject readymade for a Hallmark movie of the week or an Oscar-bait prestige picture, and instead has made a work of stunning visual ingenuity and intellectual introspection. Like the diving helmet of the title, a metaphor for the hero’s sensations of entrapment and suffocation, the film submerges the viewer in a strictly internal world, examining ideas of sensation/mind interaction, creativity, and communication. This is a striking, sensual, genuinely moving work of art.
As a collector of original posters (my collection includes linen-backed copies of Woody Allen’s French Subway poster for Deconstructing Harry,/i>, an original French subway for Fellini’s 8 1/2, French originals of Assayas’ Un Nouvelle Vie, Desplechin’s My Sex Life…, a French original lobby sized Chinatown, an original UA poster for Woody Allen’s Interiors, Lynn Ramsey’s Morvern Collar and a few Zeitgeist one sheets… See The Sea, Beau Travail, Irma Vep), I can state that this amazing poster would hold a place of honor in my collection, be properly mounted and cared for and be in excellent cinematic company as well.
Also, as a frequent reader of and commenter on this this blog, I would hope that loyalty counts for something. Ha.
Finally, the film was one of the best of 2007, and my thoughts on the movie can be found here.
An incredible item, an amazing movie, a great blog. What more can I say?
Happy to grovel,
Tom
I guess the easiest question to answer of your queries is: where will I put the poster? that’s simple. I will put it in my heart, next to the film itself. Every now and again i will share it with someone. well first i will show it off to my coworkers. Or maybe I’ll put it next to my front door and everytime I leave the house I can remember the film. But somehow I don’t think I will ever forget.
I must say that I like the film more than I like Julian Schanbel’s public persona; more than i like his art, generally. Insulting the man is probably not the best way to make my case…. So, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS is pretty damn close to perfect, but DIVING BELL transcends any ideas I had of what a film can be. David Denby calls it the “rebirth of cinema,” which is probably not giving the film enough credit. It transcends cinema. it’s too intimate, too close feeling. The first time I saw the film was with a large audience at a festival, and then I saw it alone in the privacy of my own. I prefer to see movies by myself, and in this case I don’t feel any differently, although the film is a celebration of sharing one’s life, so I have been suffering from the contradiction of that. But I’ll reconcile those feelings on my own.
As a construct, the film has so many merits. the sense of claustrophobia is perfectly balanced with visions of infinite freedom (the falling glaciers, the pyramids). and the music is a perfect underscore and supplement to the film’s tone and emotional rise and fall and rise. And the use of xrays in the main titles with handpainted credits establishes the artistic nature of the film in a way most films fail to. And those phone calls (from his lover, from his father).
now, my question to you: is the poem inscribed the same poem recited by Charlie Rose on his show when Schnabel was his guest? Sometimes I hate Charlie Rose, but his reading of that poem was utterly beautiful and it clearly moved Julian, and seemed to humble him (briefly).
Truly, Bryan.
Did I put my contest entering comment in the wrong place yesterday? I was on the Last Day to Enter Contest post written yesterday and I tried to press “go here to enter contest” in the body of the post, but the page didn’t change… So I figured I was just supposed to post a comment on that page… Which I did at around 6pm last night… Am I out of the running?? Hopefully not… I love that poster and really did dream about it last night…
Here is my original comment (with time and date too!) :
Jessica
Posted February 6, 2008 at 5:54 pm | Permalink
This poster is a beautiful object, one that reminds me very much of the film itself; Jean Dominique’s interior landscape, the map of his inner world, of places unexplored except by imagination. What inspires me about the film, what makes me long for this object, is that connection between the power of imagination and what we know of the physical world and of the certainty of death. I think Julian Schnabel has found himself in Jean Dominique’s story, found a way to assuage his own fears and make something completely universal by visually re-imagining Jean Dominique’s experience, his words, as both a subjective physical state as well as a transcendent ideal that our minds are free, regardless of our physical bonds.
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY struck a deep chord within me.
I really admire the movie, but I also think this poster is representative of what I like about Julian Schnabel as an artist. I love the use of red, the way it works against the fixed landscape of the map, bringing a messy humanity and mortality to the poster. It seems like a perfect image for the story, this chaotic feeling set against the rigid order of the map. It is truly beautiful.
I would love to hang this poster just above my nightstand, next to the bed. It seems like the perfect reminder to pay attention to my own dreams, affixed to the wall, next to my bed, anchored to the world.
Julian Schnabel is a terrible painter and visual artist but is a fantastic, insightful, deep film maker. I look at his paintings and wonder why anyone would want them. The best you could say about his paintings is that they are playful. Anything beyond that is just sycophantic.
the vision in this poster is my green eyes seeing the history of hedonism that MR julian Schnabel looks at hiseyes are visual music to the world. this is a tresure me to win i loved this beauty. my living room above my fireplace it will hang in glory.