All things considered, it’s not very surprising that Anthony Hopkins would want to make the leap from renowned actor to respected director. This season is overflowing with movies crafted by actors looking to move to the other side of the camera. What is surprising and unusual about his new film, “Slipstream,” is the way in which Mr. Hopkins the director seems to attack the fundamental conventions of filmmaking — and the fundamentals of screen acting. If you missed his directorial debut, 1996’s Chekhov meditation, “August” (and most people did), you’ll have a hard time avoiding his second turn behind the camera.

Unlike “Gone Baby Gone,” which finds Ben Affleck working within the fairly reliable framework of the missing-child thriller, or “Sleuth,” which Kenneth Branagh molded into a verbose, two-man acting showcase, “Slipstream” isn’t about Mr. Hopkins cutting his teeth as a conventional filmmaker, nor is it about his desire to create an acting-friendly world of words. Instead, at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Mr. Hopkins reportedly introduced “Slipstream” during its first screening as little more than a “creative joke.”

Speaking about the film in advance of its New York premiere next Friday, he took that flippant ambivalence to a whole new level. “I know there are things in here that will piss people off, and I just don’t care,” Mr. Hopkins said. “I wanted to knock everything upside down and break all the rules, and mess around from front to back. I’m certain I probably broke all the rules of film school cinema — all those writers rules — but I just wanted to do something different than any other movie I’ve seen. I wanted to try something new.”

Yet as the first New York audiences reach the theater, they will no doubt be taken aback by the ways “Slipstream” violates even basic narrative rules — rules that were so carefully adhered to by the movies that made Mr. Hopkins famous (except perhaps Julie Taymor’s “Titus”). From its first few seconds, the uniqueness of “Slipstream” is apparent; the title is taken from one character’s speech about alternate realities and the visual style seemingly learned from the filmmaking school of David Lynch. Featuring characters at the extremes of the emotional spectrum — switching between some that are hyper-animated and others that seem drugged-out — Mr. Hopkins, who also stars in the film, uses an aggressive, super-conscious editing scheme to scatter lines of dialogue and entire scenes, suggesting a dreamscape of subconscious randomness. At the center of the surrealism is one distinctive story involving a screenwriter (Mr. Hopkins) whose characters seem to come to life as he wanders between his fictionally created worlds. Soon the line separating reality and fiction blurs into irrelevance.

Toying with the concept of perception was chief among Mr. Hopkins’s concerns when he embarked on the film.

“I was interested in putting things in, as we edited, to give the audience some vague notion of what memory is, and where memory takes us,” he said, noting that he spent upward of four months in the editing booth, breaking apart the film’s reality and then stitching it back together in a rapid staccato. Interspersed is a potpourri of outside images, from footage of Adolf Hitler and Richard Nixon to archival movie clips. “At some level, it’s sort of philosophical. All these cuts and flashbacks keep us in a limbo, and as we watch this movie production fall apart, all the characters coming to life, we watch as life becomes a dream.”

Mr. Hopkins paints a less-than-glossy picture of life on a movie set, mocking both the business of Hollywood (John Turturro makes a hilarious turn as a venom-spewing studio exec) and the concept of screen acting. He chops up performances with an editing scheme that interrupts every scene, every sequence, even individual lines of dialogue. It’s enough to make one wonder why Mr. Hopkins is so angry with the establishment that has made him an international celebrity.

“Yes, I’ve heard that from people, but I don’t think there’s anything angry about it. There’s definitely some parts of this that are about the nature of acting — particularly with the main character, concerning what purpose does acting serve, and what is an actor’s role,” Mr. Hopkins said, referring to the film’s central conceit of fictional characters coming to life. “But the editing, it’s not a deliberate attempt to chop up the acting. It’s about life. There’s no continuity, no through-line to the action in our lives. It’s not like we get up in the morning, go through our lives, and die. In reality there’s total chaos and our minds wander, and it’s beautiful.”

While audience reactions have been mixed thus far — some early reviews angrily dismissed “Slipstream” as a vanity project, a reaction Mr. Hopkins is aware of, but relatively unaffected by — what’s undeniable is the talent that has come together for his experiment. Mr. Turturro is joined by Christian Slater and Jeffery Tambor, as well as such elite craftsmen as the cinematographer Dante Spinotti (“The Insider,” “L.A. Confidential”). The movie reportedly secured $10 million to go into production, and Mr. Hopkins said he was amazed by the talent that responded to a single call from him. No doubt there will be more than a few casual fans who will see Mr. Hopkins’s name attached to “Slipstream” and agree to take the gamble on buying a ticket. But Mr. Hopkins seems to regard the risk much as he has encountered the bends and curves of his long career. Venturing beyond acting as a respected painter, composer (his music serves as the soundtrack to “Slipstream”), and director, he said he as continually tried to push himself further.

“I started painting a few years ago, and didn’t know what to do, but now I have exhibitions of my work,” he said. “Once your free yourself from fear, you can do whatever you please. Music is much the same thing. So that’s what I did here — took my chances and didn’t think twice. I’d ask myself, ‘What are they going to do, arrest me if it doesn’t work?'”

ssnyder@nysun.com