Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien
Encyclopedia
Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien is a 1996 short documentary film
directed by Jessica Yu
. It won an Academy Award at the 69th Academy Awards
in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject
.
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.
Mark died on July 4, 1999, from post-polio syndrome
.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
directed by Jessica Yu
Jessica Yu
Jessica Lingman Yu is an American film director, writer, producer, and editor. She has worked on documentaries, dramatic films, and television shows. Yu won an Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject for Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien .-Early life:Yu graduated from Gunn...
. It won an Academy Award at the 69th Academy Awards
69th Academy Awards
The 69th Academy Awards were dominated by movies produced by independent studios, financed outside of mainstream Hollywood, leading to 1996 being dubbed "The Year of the Independents". All but one of the nominees for Best Picture were low-budget independent movies The 69th Academy Awards were...
in 1997 for Documentary Short Subject
Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject
This is a list of films by year that have received an Oscar together with the other nominations for best documentary short subject. Following the Academy's practice, the year listed for each film is the year of release: the awards are announced and presented early in the following year.-1940s:*1941...
.
Mark O'Brien was a journalist and poet who lived in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
. The documentary explored his spiritual struggle coping with his disability; he had to use an iron lung
Iron lung
A negative pressure ventilator is a form of medical ventilator that enables a person to breathe when normal muscle control has been lost or the work of breathing exceeds the person's ability....
much of the time due to childhood polio.
Mark died on July 4, 1999, from post-polio syndrome
Post-polio syndrome
Post-polio syndrome is a condition that affects approximately 25–50% of people who have previously contracted poliomyelitis—a viral infection of the nervous system—after the initial infection. Typically the symptoms appear 15–30 years after recovery from the original paralytic attack, at an age of...
.