- Britt (right) stars with Toreenee Wolf in Unsound.
Tonight at 8:30 PM and tomorrow at 6:15 PM, Darious Britt will be at the Gene Siskel Film Center to introduce Unsound, the new movie that he wrote, directed, starred in, and financed himself. Unsound is a labor of love in more ways than one, as the story is based on Britt’s real-life experience of caring for his mother, who suffers from schizoaffective disorder. The movie is as much about the sorry state of our public mental-health care system, which places far too many obstacles between mentally ill people and the treatment they need, as it is about the mother’s condition. When I spoke to Britt the other day, he said he was less concerned with exposing social problems than with telling a good story, though Unsound succeeds entirely with regards to both.
Pretty much the whole movie is taken from my own experience. What happens are the facts, but I sculpted them so they could be accessible to an audience. I had to shorten things and extend things to make them into a film. If I scripted the film exactly as things happened, it would be really boring, because these things take time.
When I wrote the first draft of the script, I just regurgitated exactly what happened. I found that people didn’t connect with that. I realized that when you’re making a film, your goal, first and foremost, is to engage the audience. You can’t impact someone with a story unless you apply craft to what you’re doing. Even if you have the best message in the world, your audience is going to fall asleep on you if you aren’t sculpting it in a way that engages them.
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- Britt on the set of Unsound
I wanted to be truthful about how tough it was. Yes, I shoved my mom into a bathroom [when she got violent]. I’ve talked to other caretakers and caseworkers—some of them get driven out of their minds, working with people with mental illnesses.
She’s great in the film. How did she prepare for the part once you cast her?
Most scenes in the film play out in very patient, static shots. This feels appropriate to the subject matter—you’re literally forcing the viewer to stare at the facts head-on.
