Julian Schnabel is one of the greatest painters alive today with works in the Met, the Pompidou, and countless other museums and private collections. He also has directed three films, Basquiat,Before Night Falls, and most recently, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which firmly establishes him as one of the world’s best filmmakers. Not too long ago, I had a chance to interview him in regards to The Diving Bell.

Starting out, he immediately asked that the lights be turned down, catching everyone in the room by surprise; with a true artist’s eye, the reflection of the lights in the window was bothering him. As we began to discuss film, he lamented about how he had wanted to make Perfume (a movie that came out last year), but someone else produced another script, and the movie turned out to be a wreck (slightly vindicating I would imagine).

Moving onto his movie, I was mildly surprised given his prominence as a painter when he said, “I’m just used to being attacked all the time because people criticize painting. They always say ‘This is the emperor’s new clothes’ or ‘I don’t understand that.’” So for Schnabel, the extremely positive critical reception of the film was a new experience. Yet, more rewarding than its critical success, “the most extraordinary thing that has come out of this… people that are in stroke centers and hospitals… doctors and nurses that deal with people that can’t speak are asking if this film can be shown in the hospital. People who can’t talk can watch this and feel that they are not alone, and I never thought about that when I started doing this.” As the interview continued, Schnabel explained how this film helps people to reevaluate life and death, and that he wished his father who was scared of dying could have seen the movie before he passed away, as it could have lessened his fear.

Leaving the room, he asked me and the few others present if we had seen Cy Twombly’s works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (a very abstract set of paintings depicting the Iliad). When I mentioned that I really wanted to get back before the Renoir exhibit left, he seemed to care little about Renoir, informing me that Twombly was a much better artist. I still like Renoir better, but my opinion matters very little in relation to Schnabel’s.

-Kevin Koplan