Details

Release year: 2007

Storyline

The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body; only his left eye isn't paralyzed.

Top credits

Directors

Julian Schnabel

Writers

Cast

Mathieu Amalric — Jean-Do
Emmanuelle Seigner — Céline
Marie-Josée Croze — Henriette Roi
Anne Consigny — Claude

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Awards

0 wins & 4 nominations

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Did you know

• To familiarize himself with Bauby's sheltered existence, director Julian Schnabel made the movie in the same hospital where Bauby was treated, meeting many of the orderlies who had treated him. He also shot scenes on the same balcony where Bauby relaxed, and on the same nearby beach to which his family had taken him.

• After the making of the film, it was widely confirmed that in actuality it was the girlfriend who was steadfastly by John-Dominique's side after his stroke, and not the mother of his children. It is unknown why these roles were reversed in the making of the film, but by all accounts his girlfriend helped with the book and in whose arms Bauby died, while the mother of his children was in the U.S. with her boyfriend when he passed.

• Julian Schnabel learned French to make the film.