Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien
1996 · TMDB 6.5
Directed by Jessica Yu
Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien is a 1996 American short documentary film directed by Jessica Yu. Mark O'Brien was a journalist and poet who lived in Berkeley, California. The documentary explored his spiritual struggle coping with his disability; he had to use an iron lung much of the time due to childhood polio. O'Brien died on 4 July 1999, from post-polio syndrome. It won an Oscar at the 69th Academy Awards in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject.
Why it matters
Jessica Yu's Oscar-winning documentary follows Mark O'Brien, a poet and journalist who used an iron lung, over the last months of his life. His wit about sex, desire and the indignity of institutional care is the film's engine.
- Runtime
- 35 min
- Released
- 1996-03-13
- Studio
- Inscrutable Films
- Country
- United States of America
- Language
- English
- TMDB score
- 6.5
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