The truth about "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

The Film

In France, a publisher owns book and film rights. But just as in the U.S., after the advance is paid back, the author receives a percentage of the royalties. When Bauby died, his children, Théo and Céleste, were the inheritors of their father's rights and royalties, and, naturally, Sylvie de la Rochefoucauld acted as her minor children's representative in their business matters. De la Rochefoucauld is a successful businesswoman and a fierce mother. She has her own public relations company and formerly ran television chain Canal +'s Jimmy channel. She is chic, sophisticated and fluent in English.

The publisher, Editions Robert Laffont, sold the rights of "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" first to Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks, and one of Hollywood's most successful screenwriters, Ron Bass, wrote the first script. Bass won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for "Rain Man" in 1988 and has also written other emotional and visual stunners such as "The Joy Luck Club" and "Snow Falling on Cedars."

But as often happens in the movie business, the project stalled and switched companies -- to Universal and then to Pathé, who finally made the movie with producer Kathleen Kennedy. Kennedy, who has produced such movies as "Munich," "Seabiscuit" and "The Sixth Sense," asked Harwood to write another script, and it was his screenplay that Schnabel read and directed. Johnny Depp had been attached to play Bauby early on but couldn't proceed because of "Pirates of the Caribbean," and, happily for all involved, French actor Mathieu Amalric was brought in.

Because de la Rochefoucauld was the mother of Bauby's two kids, the publisher extended her the courtesy of being involved with the film. She was contacted to speak with Bass about his script, and she was put in touch with Kennedy. The two women became friends. "Kathleen Kennedy is the godmother of the movie," de la Rochefoucauld says.

Editions Robert Laffont and de la Rochefoucauld had a good relationship, and the publisher looked upon "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" as an extraordinary publishing adventure. Everyone involved made money and benefited. Then, just as the movie was finally about to be filmed, de la Rochefoucauld (again, representing Théo and Céleste) brought a lawsuit against the publisher, which was shocking to them. Simply put, the point was to question the rights of the book and the film, increasing the royalties for the Bauby children.

The first judgment was in de la Rochefoucauld's favor. The case went to appeal, and the parties are working on an agreement on the court's demand. One notion of French law that doesn't exist in the U.S. is the ownership of "droit moral" or moral right. This is an intellectual right of an artist to protect his work. When an artist dies, the "droit moral" goes to his heirs unless he appoints someone else. For example, a John Huston movie was colorized in the U.S., and the movie is shown this way in the States despite the opposition of the Huston heirs who are trying to honor their father's artistic wishes. But in France, where the Huston heirs argued their father didn't want his film to be in color, the colorized film can't be shown because of droit moral.

Being the mother of the Bauby children, de la Rochefoucauld also represented their droit moral. In this capacity, she could make sure the movie adaptation protected her children in the way that she saw fit. "She [de la Rochefoucauld] was very much involved in the screenplays," one person close to the situation told me. "She could have opposed this or that version of the screenplays because of the children."

Changes are made when books are adapted to film, and some make the transition better than others. This is the screenwriting business as usual. Harwood, whose credits include "The Dresser" and "Being Julia," is a master adapter and playwright. He says the book and de la Rochefoucauld were his main sources. Incredibly, his screenplay was greenlighted on the first draft. "I took what she [de la Rochefoucauld] told me as gospel," Harwood says. "I don't believe in research. You have to tell a story in a movie. Sometimes the facts disturb all that. I was asked to adapt, and that was what I decided to do."

Harwood says he became friends with de la Rochefoucauld, and she'd given him a dinner party in Paris. He also had an interview with Bauby's transcriber, Mendibil. "All the women were so good-looking," he says. "All fell in love with him. They found him deeply attractive. I used the things I thought were valuable."

To de la Rochefoucauld, the film hits all the right notes, especially the portrayal of Bauby by Amalric. "Everything with Mathieu is right," she says. "The entire movie is right. We couldn't dream the movie would be so beautiful." "For me, the movie was amazing," Théo says. "It was like a flashback for me, the way Mathieu looked and acted like my dad."

Bauby's circle of friends agree that Amalric did an amazing job of portraying Bauby and his condition. "I think Julian Schnabel got it," says Véronique Blandin, director of the Association of Locked-In Syndrome, which Bauby founded in the last month of his life. "It gives the right feeling of the locked-in syndrome people and problems in their communication. We can really recognize the book." The problems begin for Blandin and others where Bauby's private life is concerned. "I don't agree with the personal story," says Blandin, who now works with Bauby's friends in the association. "It's not the truth."

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