Julian Schnabel in Pleasantville

Other tidbits? Schnabel says he wouldn't have gotten this gig if it weren't for Johnny Depp, who originally agreed to star as Bauby but only if Schnabel was attached. "He got caught up with the pirate stuff," Schnabel explained with a shrug. And somehow, the movie then became more French, even though the producers originally felt that an American film would have more commercial potential. And that was another topic of discussion, as Maslin wondered aloud whether The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is eligible for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Turns out it's not, because the French decided to submit the animated film Persepolis for that potential honor -- and, as far as foreign countries and the Academy are concerned, there can be only one. And as far as awards go, Schnabel is convinced Diving Bell had been selected as the grand prize winner at Cannes -- his actresses were called back to the venue for the awards ceremony -- until some kind of eleventh-hour shenanigans on the jury bumped him down to Best Director. Some killjoy wanted to know why Schnabel only cast beautiful women to play Bauby's nurses, and Schnabel engaged the question artfully: "I saw this movie like 8 1/2, a bit," he said, noting the film's blurred lines between Bauby's ruined body and the escapist fantasies he began to sketch inside his still-functioning head.

As for the movie itself? It didn't really move me -- which is a shame, because I was prepared to cry my eyes out after the bravura opening scenes, which constitute some of the most harrowing first-person cinematography I've ever seen committed to film. (I was ready to hand much of the credit to his world-class cinematographer on this, Janusz Kaminski, but Schnabel made a point of noting how his background as a painter influenced the film's look, so I have to assume there was a vigorous and fruitful collaboration on the visuals.) The film forges an interesting connection between the images on screen and the audience, as essentially motionless and helpless in its theater seats as the immobilized Bauby is in his hospital bed -- I was reminded for some reason of the terrifying POV sequence photographed from inside a coffin in Dreyer's great horror film Vampyr. I felt the film lost its way after that extended high point, partly because Mathieu Amalric didn't get a script with quite enough character to sink his teeth into, partly because Schnabel's approach is more indulgent of his own painterly sensibilities and less gritty than it needed to be. It's not a waste of time, exactly, but a missed opportunity.