Prior to the screening of The Diving Bell… I forgot to mention that a short documentary was made on the same subject during the last few months of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s life. In Assigné à résidence, French director Jean-Jacques Beineix (Diva, Betty Blue…) poignantly follows the last few months of Jean-Dominique Bauby. It was shown years ago as part of the Storyville strand on BBC2 but was never distributed theatrically in the UK. I originally thought of screening it after Julian Schnabel’s drama version but, unfortunately, the film club couldn’t afford showing both. (The documentary can be found as part of a box set sold on amazon.fr).

An interesting article was published last Sunday in Observer Woman (The Real Story Behind the Diving Bell and the Butterfly), which might shatter for some the beauty of Julian Schnabel’s film. In brief, it tells of how the American director rearranged Bauby’s story to suit his cinematic needs. We come back to one of the primary debates in cinema: how truthful and objective should cinema be, especially when based on true stories? What do you think?