How to Explain Your Mental Illness to Stanley Kubrick

Director Philip Józef Brubaker in conversation with filmmaker Jonathan Kiefer after the film!

In this soul-baring essay film, a manic experimental filmmaker (played by Brubaker, actually undergoing psychosis onscreen) summons a manifestation of Stanley Kubrick into his apartment to confront him on the negative depiction of mental illness in his filmography. The two directors go on a feverish journey through Kubrick’s oeuvre, as the master director is confronted for his negative portrayal of the burden of insanity. Characters from Dr. Strangelove, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket are re-evaluated, as the experimental filmmaker demands the recalcitrant Kubrick admit to his bias against the mentally ill. (67 min.)

Preceded by short film:
Breathless Remake: Masterpiece or Piece of Shit?

While Breathless (1983) doesn’t break new cinematic ground the way Godard did, the sex appeal is there, in spades. The comic book energy and pizzazz is found all over L.A. in the murals that cover the city, the characters passing by them like panels in a comic book. Belmondo’s Michel was inspired by American gangster films. Gere’s Jesse worships the Silver Surfer. But it’s as if Gere read a review of About de Souffle that said Belmondo’s petty criminal was a sociopath and that meant he ought to play Jesse as an asshole. If there is charm in Jim McBride’s Breathless, it’s not spilling off of Richard Gere. Still, Quentin Tarantino is an unabashed fan of this inferior remake…if no longer a fan of Godard. (13 min)