5.8.08
Weekend Highlights May 9-11
THE ROGOVOY REPORT
5.6.08
[PRESS RELEASE] Pinchas Zukerman daughter Natalia to headline at Club Helsinki
Coming to Great Barrington, Mass., nightclub on May 18
5.2.08
Singer/composer Jenny Scheinman at MASS MoCA is weekend's top pick
Preview by SETH ROGOVOY, Berkshire Living Magazine
4.25.08
[FILM REVIEW] Shine a Light (The Rolling Stones)
review by SETH ROGOVOY, Berkshire Living Magazine
4.17.08
[FILM REVIEW] The Counterfeiters
review by SETH ROGOVOY, Berkshire Living Magazine
4.11.08
Klezmatics do Woody Guthrie's Jewish songs
Weekend highlights, April 11-13
3.17.08
GOLEM returns to Club Helsinki for PURIM this Friday night
Press Release from Club Helsinki
3.8.08
CHEESE TO BE SPOKEN OF AND EATEN ON MARCH 30
part of BERKSHIRE LIVING's REST OF THE STORY series
2.25.08
Richard Thompson, America, and Madeline Peyroux added to Mahaiwe lineup this spring
Mahaiwe press release
7.1.07
[DANCE REVIEW] State Ballet of Georgia at Jacob's Pillow
Review from the NEW YORK TIMES
2.24.08
[MUSIC REVIEW] Urban vs. Pastoral Music at the Mahaiwe courtesy of Close Encounters with Music
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
2.18.08
[THEATER REVIEW] TRUMBO at Barrington Stage
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
2.18.08
[MUSIC REVIEW] Sarah Aroeste's neo-Ladino at Club Helsinki
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
2.21.08
[FILM REVIEW] THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
2.11.08
[COMEDY REVIEW] The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
2.11.08
[COMEDY REVIEW] The Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Mahaiwe
Review by Seth Rogovoy, BERKSHIRE LIVING Magazine
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[FILM REVIEW] THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
2.21.08
THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Directed by Julian Schnabel
Written by Ronald Harwood
Based on a book by Jean-Dominique Bauby
Starring Mathieu Amalric and Emannuelle Seigner
With Max von Sydow
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby, written one blink of an eye at a time, is nearly as heroic a piece of filmmaking as was
Bauby's effort to write after suffering a stroke leaving him with "locked-in syndrome."
Director Julian Schnabel and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski do an amazing job of rendering Bauby's consciousness--he can barely see, he can hear, he can't speak, and he's almost totally paralyzed (except for the ability to blink one eye)--in film, so that the story is told from the point of view of the man with locked-in syndrome, thus bringing the viewer into his mortifying world.
Amalric, who is the French Dustin Hoffman, is superb in the role of Bauby, who before his crippling stroke was editor of the French Elle magazine, and apparently quite the
woman's man. (Aren't all French men "women's men"?) The bevy of beautiful women surrounding him -- nurses, therapists, aides, girlfriends, and his former wife, played
caringly by Emannuelle Seigner -- is something of a tease, or a fantasy, perhaps, but it suggests many layers of irony that Bauby should wind up in this position.
The film is slightly marred by some repetitive and heavy-handed symbolism, mainly as embodied by the two aspects of the title. We could do without the many shots of Amalric underwater in a diving bell. And the transformation and freedom represented by the butterfly should have been outlawed as a metaphor after the great film, i>Papillon, made extensive use of it.
Nevertheless, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly does a great job of combining experimental narrative technique with mainstream filmmaking.
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