Going into a movie without a clue - *warning* spoiler alert

I saw The Diving Bell and the Butterfly today and this is what I knew going in to see it: it was nominated for Best Director; the director is Julian Schnabel, an American; the actors are all French and it was shot in the French language. That's it. I read nothing about it, and was content to go in clean, my mind free from any reviews, from other's likes, dislikes, impressions, and interpretations. I think it's a rare treat to go into a movie these days with a clean slate (unless you live in your parents' basement with an old black and white tv that gets only UHF signals and one channel, which I, thankfully, don't).

The friend I went with kept saying how intense the movie was going to be and when I told her what I knew about it, she was blown away and asked if I wanted to know more. My mind started racing with all sorts of horrible images of mutilated people (and not like the comical finger that Jack Nicholson waves around, over-the-top-ly in The Departed; I mean gruesome, gritty documentary-like mutilations) or children being abused. So I said, "well, okay, tell me the gist of it."

She tells me it's about the editor of French Vogue who has a stroke and only has the use of his left eye.

"Uh-oh," I said, "I don't know if I have any tissues."

"I've got plenty. Here's one to get you started," she offered.

The movie is inspired. And not like I Am Sam. Here was a guy in his forties living his life with a really nice car, three children and mistresses, with a seemingly good, but complicated-as-they-all-are relationship with his father (I am a sucker for the scenes between Jean-Do and his father, Papinou [played with heart-wrenching empathy and humor]) and one day he has a stroke. Or a cerebral something or other 'accident.' He didn't drink or smoke. The doctors don't know why; this just happened to him.

But that is not why I liked the movie. Of course the moments of regret and how he should have lived his life differently--was it Socrates who said "an unexamined life is not worth living"?--resonated with me. But, I liked it for how it was shot, how the story unfolded, the poetry of the images (both in words--the lighthouse, and in pictures, the avalanche falling into the sea), the music, the relationships that develop between Jean-Do and his speech therapist, Henriette, and his scribe, Claude. In some ways it just was very un-American.

I was imagining how this might have played out had it been directed by:

someone else who did not have Schnabel's painterly sensibility,

or if it had been driven by some big Hollywood studio machine (more sap! amp up the score! use the It Girl of the moment for the part of scribe! use Daniel Day Lewis for Jean-Do [wait, that was My Left Foot], ok let's use Dustin Hoffman -- wait-- Meet the Fockers ... need I say more?),

or if it had been driven by the "indie" Sundance scene (Can we get The Shins for the soundtrack? Can we film it for $10 million? Yes, "indie" movies cost that much, and more, now).

I also liked it for the inspiration (that I at least thought about on the drive home) for being / becoming a writer. I loved what he said abour re-writing Dumas. Also, what does it say about me as a writer when a guy who only had the use of his left eye to blink once for yes, twice for no, s-p-e-l-l-i-n-g out each word that he wanted to say can write a book and I can barely sit my bum down on this chair and wrote a blog once a month?

That said, I'm going to sit myself down on my comfy couch and watch another Oscar-nom, and hope that it's as rewarding to watch as this one was.