The Piano (1993), a co-production film from New Zealand, Australia, and France directed by Jane Campion and French film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) directed by Julian Schnabel both take focus on the lives of the main character after an event that has left them unable to speak. However the main characters’ inabilities to speak are presented in a way that does not interfere with their strong ability to communicate. This essay will focus on a few tools the directors use to communicate to an audience the thoughts and feelings of the main characters who are unable to communicate through speech. The main ways the directors accomplish this feat are through the use of establishing a point of view through camera angles, changes in lighting and coloration that correspond to changes in mood, the use of narration to present unspoken thoughts. All of these aspects work in synthesis with one another to deliver a film that expressively communicates the thoughts and emotions of the main character to the audience. The Piano and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly may at first appear to have nothing in common; however after assessing how the directors implement filming techniques in both of the movies, similarities and differences emerge in how the directors present the communication boundary between the main character, other characters, and the audience.
Both The Piano and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly center on instances that occur in the main characters life and how the character’s inability to speak along with their unique ways of speaking effect the situations the character is facing. Because this is the focus of the films, both directors rely on some narration to present inner thoughts to the audience. This type of narration is evident in the beginning of The Piano as a gentle woman’s voice describes her story. The audience is introduced to Ada McGrath, a mute who has willed herself not to speak after the death of her husband after a lightning strike. Ada’s voice tells the audience, “The voice you hear is not my speaking voice, but my minds voice… The strange thing is, I don’t think of myself as silent. That is because of my piano.” This short narration clip familiarizes the audience with Ada and gives vital information to the viewer such as the relationship between Ada’s inability to speak and her communication through her beloved piano. Narration in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is quite different, however. Instead of being presented with the basis of the story directly through Ada speaking to the audience, the audience is brought into the film as Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French fashion magazine editor who suffers a stroke and suffers from a full body paralysis apart from his left-eyelid, questions where he is, unsure of what is happening and what has happened. Narration is used initially to acquaint the main character with the audience, but as the films progress, narration supplements the storyline by allowing the character to clarify parts of the story and aids in moving the film along. With the help of a speech therapist, Jean-Dominique learns to communicate through blinking his left eye to choose a letter from a list that is being read out, and eventually decides to write a book that he had a contract for before the accident. Jean Dominique voice reads to the viewer the first part of the book, saying, “Through the frayed curtains, a warm glow announces the presence of day…a sort of diving bell holds my body prisoner. My main task now is to compose this sort of bed ridden notes from a cast away on the shores of loneliness…” In both cases, narration is used to supplement the telling of the story, acquainting the audience with background information in the case of The Piano and helping to bring the audience into the shoes of Jean-Dominique in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
The second way the films express the feelings of Ada and Jean-Dominique is by establishing a point of view through camera angles. The point of view in The Piano is as if the audience is next to the characters of the film. First we see the character
looking through a hole, and next we find ourselves looking through the same hole and seeing what they have seen. Paul Brenner film reviewer of the NY times describes this technique, saying, “Campion directs with discreet detachment, observing one character through the glances and squints of another as they peer through wooden slats, airy curtains, and spaces between a character’s fingers. She makes the film immediate and urgent by implicating the audience in character’s gazes”. The camera seems to move around the action throughout the film. At one point the viewer is beneath the arriving canoe of Ada and Flora (her daughter who communicates with her mom through sign language) and next he or she is on the shore watching as they are carried by Maori tribes men from the canoe to the beach. The point of view in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is as if you are Jean-Dominique himself. Most of the film is shot in Dutch angles that correspond to Jean-Dominique’s viewpoint (whose head is slouched to one side due to his paralysis). Another NY Times film critique, A. O. Scott, describes the camera directing of Schnabel saying, “And yet he also shows astonishing formal control. The movie begins claustrophobically, as we see the blurry bustle of the hospital room from Jean-Dominique’s hazy, panicked perspective. Faces loom suddenly and awkwardly into view, while his captive consciousness writhes in its cage, trying to make contact with the world outside.” By successfully creating a point of view, the directors engage the audience with the character, helping them experience the troubles and relate themselves to Ada or Jean-Dominique.
Color and Lighting are used in both films to enhance the camera angles. Not only are we shown a scene in a particular viewpoint, but coloration and lighting techniques are employed to enhance our experience. In the Piano and The Diving Bell 
and the Butterfly color and lighting are used to depict the moods of the main character. Upon arriving to the new land at which her arranged husband lives, Ada and her daughter Flora must spend the night on the beach with her daughter in a makeshift tent. The tent is lit with an orange glow implying warmth which corresponds to the joy Ada and her daughter share together. Later in the film, Ada is seduced and eventually falls in love with another man named Baines. In the scenes dealing with their adultery, backlit lighting penetrates the walls of Baines’ shack and catches the outline of Ada’s hair. Both of these warm environments are contrasted by a chilly blue tint present in the forest scenes (also the place where her husband chops one of her fingers when he finds out she is having relations with Baines). “Stuart Dryburgh’s fine camerawork”, says David Stratton, film critique working with Variety.com, “draws maximum pictorial splendor from the chilly, rain swept settlement in which the reluctant bride finds herself, as well as from bleakly beautiful beach sequences.”
The same color patterns are present 
in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Jean-Dominique’s mood controls the lighting as the audience is presented with a warm orange screen that captures the curtains flowing in the wind, when Jean-Dominique reads the beginning of his book. Colors are natural and bright when he imagines traveling the world or when he relives situations in his past. And the lighting is dim with cold blue colors when he has a dream of a bloody hospital bed which makes him realize he is about to die.
The Piano and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly successfully use film techniques to communicate the thoughts and feelings of a mute main character to the audience. By incorporating narration to help tell the story and relay inner thought, using camera angles to establish a point of view, and manipulating lighting conditions to reflect mood, the audience is pulled into the story of Ada McGrath and Jean-Dominique Bauby as they deal with the struggles of life in respects to their struggle with communication.
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