By JAKE KRING-SCHREIFELS

Do you have 10 minutes? That is the amount of time filmmaker Julien Nitzberg shares with us in his latest mini-documentary, “To Be Loved and Understood,” about comedian Patton Oswalt, as part of a web series called “Rituals” hosted by the YouTube channel Thrash Lab. It is a short, provocative look at Oswalt’s life on the road as a standup comedian, or as we soon see, his daily grind and uneventful routines. They consist of, as he puts it, a lot of driving and a lot of silence trying to mentally work “bits” out. He does this in his hotel the night of a performance and says the only ritual he has now is trying to get on stage as much as he can. A comedian’s material must always be tested.

The audience is a character in this short film, as Nitzberg stops to hear the reasons why Oswalt connects with his fans. To some he is a nerd-hero, combining proper geek sensibilities with real world dilemmas; to others, he taps into the angst and oppression of the Orange County upper middle class. Still, there is a growing consensus even amongst his more diverse groups of fans that depression and comedy walk a difficult but necessary line together. “What makes you funny is what makes you more vulnerable and thus not as successful a human being,” he ponders.

Like any artist, he is seeking connection. His recurring gloom, bouts with depression and visits to therapy have allowed him to find a collective comfort. Relaying his personal problems to the crowd has allowed a boomerang of similar feelings to come back and spark realizations that many share the same lows and highs. Silence after a joke goes wrong can be painful and humiliating, but a unifying chuckle is assuredly a heartwarming feeling. It is a sign that a shared perspective is taking place, a style many other comedians who spot the absurdities in everyday life champion.

Whether it is on the cleaner side of things like Jerry Seinfeld and Jim Gaffigan, or the more perverse like Louis CK (Oswalt leans towards this pole), the more shared laughs comedians elicit, the more they find confidence in their articulated points of view. “To Be Loved and Understood” is all Oswalt really desires. His jokes, which you will find in this documentary, don’t shy away from crudeness and culturally taboo topics. He is even willing to take shots at Nitzberg himself, questioning his filming tactics as the film crew follows Oswalt around the hotel hallways and cramped elevator. These scenes, including his verbal thought processes in his car, are all shot in black and white until he reaches the stage. It is a small but elemental visual metaphor surrounding Oswalt’s and presumably many other standup comedians’ regimen. Drive. Think. Check-in. Sleep. Think. Write. Perform… Connect.