Bell stars Mathieu Amalric (Munich) as Jean-Dominique Bauby, the French Elle editor who at 43 suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed except for his left eye, which, by blinking, he used to dictate the memoir on which this is based. Director Julian Schnabel brought a certain zeal to the project. ''My system of directing is, everybody jumps in the hole. If you can climb out, you can go home at the end of the day.'' The result won him the Best Director prize at this year's Cannes.

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