The former art star and director of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly sat downâmake that lay downâwith Annie Wagner to dis American Beauty, dish about coded messages to his subjectâs real-life mistress, and discuss the sensual implications of sensory deprivation.
What made you agree to make a movie about someone who can only move one eyelid?
Well, I read the script, and that told me, basically, how it could work. I thought two things: If the diving bell was this diving suit that kept him locked up under the waterâand that was his bodyâand if the butterfly was freedom⌠Now, to me, when I read this, it wasnât seeing a butterfly. That did not do it for me. I didnât equate the butterflyâlike with that plastic bag in American Beauty, you see an image and that image is going to embody beauty or whatever. What I thought was, if I could see the point of view of the butterfly, then that would be freedom.
Jean-Do said, I can imagine anything at all. All right, Iâm down with that. That means I could put anything I want in the film. And I thought thatâyou know the book Perfume, by Patrick SĂźskind?âthe way that I believed that Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, that his sense of smell was so great that he could smell all the way to Egypt, or he could smell ecosystems falling apart. So I kind of took these things that I had written in [a proposed screenplay adaptation of] Perfume, and put it in here, because I thought that Jean-Do could go there with his imagination. That made me think, okay, I can do this. There were a lot of elements that leaned me toward a divine light. There was a possibility of going to a place, if I got on a boat, that I could find. And so I said yes.
It struck me that Jean-Doâs experience of being immobile, only being able to see through one eyeâis like seeing a movie.
Thank you. Exactly.
I mean, you are forced to see what the director directs you to see, you canât direct your own gaze, and itâs through one camera eye, you donât have that dual perspective.
I think what youâre saying, that itâs like seeing a movieâthatâs really interesting. Because usually when weâre watching a movie, we see two people acting something out, or many people. But the fact that youâre just seeing sight is unusual⌠It seems like the most natural thing in the world. But you wonder, what is going on here? Why does this seem so peculiar to me? Normally when someone talks to the camera in a movie, the movie stops. And you become aware of that. But because everyoneâs talking to the camera⌠He might not be moving, but everything else is. So the movie is very active. And the women are amazing.
Itâs amazing how much humanity they have. You know, when actors are acting together, they can derail other actors as well as enhance what they do. Here, there isnât anybody whoâs throwing a monkey wrench into their thing and is going to change it, for better or worse. And I think that Marie-Jo [Marie-JosĂŠe Croze, playing one of Jean-Doâs therapists] found that veryâI think everybody was scared about that, at first. And Marie-Jo said it was the most difficult job she ever had but it was the best job she ever had. Emmanuelle [Seigner, playing Jean-Doâs wife], on the other hand said, you know, it was a little difficult at first, but then it was really easy, and I liked it and it was not a problem.
To go back to what you can see in Jean-Doâs point of viewâthat wall full of photographs next to his hospital bedâI was always expecting to go there, eventually, and find out what he was looking at. But it stays peripheral.
Itâs interesting, because youâre kind of primed as a viewer, toâand this is how somebody else would make the movie: now weâre going to see these people in this photograph, and now this will come to mind. But I didnât look at it like that. I actually took these prints and turned them upside down, because I wanted to make a landscapeâI wanted to make this place where he could escape to, to get outside the confines of his room.
So there are these two etchings, one upside down and one notâyou feel like, are those trees upside down? What the hell am I looking at? Then my parents are on the wall, dancing at the Roy Hotel in 1956 in the Catskill Mountains. They were in both my other films and even though theyâre dead now, I felt like they could be in this film too. Marlon Brandoâs boxing gloves are on the wall. If you see the documentary that Jean-Jacques Beineix made about Jean-Do that really kind of proved to everybody that he actually wrote the book by blinking his eyeâitâs very grim, that room. And it was kind of a shitty curtain. Yeah, it was yellowish, but⌠When Fred Hughesâwho was my friend, I lived in his house on rue du Cherche-Midi from 1987 to around 1990⌠He had MS, and when he got worse, he had to go to the American hospital. He wanted me to bring things, so I brought a big gold batâ
Like a baseball bat?
No, a bat, with wings. It was beautiful. He had little paintings, and lots of flowers, and I brought a mirror from his roomâthings that he liked. And so I thought, Iâm going to give Jean-Do Fred Hughesâs room. Jean-Do said, âSwimming up from the mist of a coma you never have the luxury of having your dreams evaporate.â That made me think, what reality am I in? He also said, âIf Iâm going to drool, Iâd rather drool on cashmere.â So I thought, Iâll give him linen sheets and silk pajamas, and he will be the bon vivant Beau Brummell that heâs supposed to be.
I want to talk briefly about the scene with Inès [Jean-Doâs mistress] on the phoneâ
Can IâIâm going to lie on the floor. Can we lie on the floor?
Um, sure.
[Schnabel hunkers next to a table and tells me to where to put the tape recorder, etc. I lie down in the opposite direction.]
Very good.
Okey-doke. Thatâs better, right?
You gonna take a nap now?
I am one tired guy. But Iâm with you! Okay, so Inès.
Yeah, the scene where she calls on the phone and CĂŠline [his estranged wife] has to translate. Because weâre locked in to Jean-Doâs perspective, paradoxically, we sympathize more with CĂŠline.
Yes, yes. Ron Harwood had written this scene where the wife would be there and the telephone call would come, and I thought that was very good. The truth of the thing was, the wife didnât see him that much when he was there. It was really the girlfriend who saw him more. And I think she felt some kind of injustice about the way the script was. But the thing is, she was pretty much left out of the book, too. Jean-Do decided to do this, to leave this book as an annuity to the mother of his kids and his kids. But I didnât have that same problem that he hadâof guilt, or whatever he had.
I looked into all of these things. And I found out from Anne-Marie Perrier, who worked at French Elle that Florence [Inèsâs real name] used to go to the hospital all the time and then they had a fight. Then they didnât see each other for almost three months. He was getting worse, he was getting really thin. Anne-Marie asked Jean-Do if she could intervene. And she did. And Florence called on the phone and asked if she should come, and he said, âChaque jour je tâattendsâââEach day I wait for you.â The only people that knew that he said that were Florence and Anne-Marie and me. And I put that in the movie, because I wanted to say to Florence, I know that he loved you.
Thatâs lovely.
I was like a detective. I found out different things from Florence. Incredible things. She once said to me, âWeâve seen you before.â I said, âWhat do you mean?â She said, âJean-Do and I were behind you at the bullfights in NĂŽmes.â Thereâs nothing about bullfighting in this book. But I thought, I can put anything in this movie I want!
And thereâs this other moment where he says, âNow Iâd like to remember myself when I was devilishly handsome, glamorous, debonairâŚâ And I thought, I donât think Jean-Do was ever devilishly handsome. And Mathieu Amalric [the actor who plays Jean-Do] is very charming, but I could see some people thinking, âThat guyâs not handsome!â I didnât want to lose my audience. So I thought, okay, everybody will think this guyâs handsome. I own these pictures of Brando, so I called Mike Medavoy, whoâs the executor of the estate, and I said, âI have these pictures of Marlon. Can I use them?â He said, âWell, if he looks goodâŚâ
I had archivists that were going in, and I said, I want bullfighting stuff, I want skiing, I want glaciersâ
Yeah, the glaciersâŚ
Thatâs the key. Thatâs the key to the whole thing, isnât it. Glaciers. And thatâs what I had written into Perfume, where Grenouille goes up on top of this mountain and he smells Egypt and he smells ecosystems falling apart, and when I couldnât do that I thought, okay, I can put it in this movie.
Itâs a powerful image, without you having to say anything.
Exactly.
I would like to talk a little bit about the look of the scenes from his past. What were you going for, with the bullfighting, the convertible rides through the French countrysideâŚ
Well, I think theyâre very different, the way they look from one to the next. You have a sense of time in these things. I mean, he said he could time-travel. You see this shot of Led Hamilton surfing in this giant wave. The color of it is pretty cool. Itâs this 16mm lookâŚ
[A publicist comes in to warn us time is almost up.]
[To publicist]: Is that aâyou look like youâre in a doctorâs coat, like youâre going to operate!
[She responds]: No, itâs a sweater!
Yeah, okay. How much time do we have?
Two minutes.
All right, youâve got two minutes, girl. Do you want me to finish what I was saying?
Yes.
I wanted to show thatâyou know, it was not scripted, that he had a convertible. I wanted to see the trees, I wantedâŚ
You wanted to see the hair! That great, abstract shot of the hair in the cameraâŚ
I knew that image was going in there with that music before this movie was ever made. That was the first thing I shot.
I think you can tell. That motif repeatsâon the beach thereâs hair, in the boat thereâs womenâs hair. Itâs all over this movie.
Itâs alive, this film. I think you start noticing the way you notice things. Itâs like, for all the sensory deprivation that the guy had, it becomes all about the senses.