Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien (1996)

User Rating:

8.2/10   

Director:

Jessica Yu

Writer:

Jessica Yu (writer)

Genre:

Documentary | Short

Plot:

Mark O'Brien is a journalist (for Pacific News Service) and poet who lives in Berkeley, California. He is in his 40's...

Plot Keywords:

Polio | Berkeley California | Friendship | Iron Lung | Meditation

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 3 wins

Cast

Mark O'Brien	...	Himself
Elizabeth Duvall	...	Herself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ian Berzon	...	Himself

Runtime:

35 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Berkeley, California, USA

Company:

Inscrutable Films

Quotes:

Mark O'Brien: Everybody becomes disabled unless they die first.

The equal of King Gimp, this is an incredible piece of work!

This is probably the second most difficult comment I have written on anything at the IMDb, but I saw this yesterday and, if I didn't comment on this, I likely would regret not doing so, so here goes:

Mark O'Brien was born roughly ten years before I was and contracted polio at age six, in 1955. Thus he was in an iron lung before I was even born. I have Cerebral Palsy, but even in that, I am comparatively fortunate. Mr. O'Brien struggled just to stay alive, to draw breath. Placed in context to that, my difficulties are a minor inconvenience. But, be that as it may, the reason that this struck me so profoundly is that, despite the major differences in our particular circumstances, at times in this documentary, his remarks were all too familiar to me. The disabled are viewed quite differently by a large segment of the "presently able-bodied" (that's as logical and meaningful a label as "differently abled", a phrase that is such a null that I hardly know where to begin in discussing it, so I won't) and most disabled individuals put up with things on a daily basis that would send the average person to the top of a building with a rifle and a scope inside of a week. On bad days, I think most people would probably breathe a sigh of relief if we, reminders of humanity's fragility, would just vanish. O'Brien not only thought that, he said and wrote it out loud.

One segment, toward the end, made me start crying, it hit so close to home. I won't discuss it here, but O'Brien talked about something in front of a camera that I doubt I could have even tap danced around. To anyone who has seen this, what O'Brien talked about here, it's not just an isolated instance, not just one voice in the wilderness. I'd wager that there are a lot of people out and about who'd say the same if pressed.

Disabled people are just that-PEOPLE who happen to be disabled. Treat us as such-people, more or less like you, just a bit different.

This should be in print and available. Well worth tracking down. Most highly recommended.