Known for his quirky revamps of genres like screwball comedy, writer-director David O. Russell now has reinvented himself: from an on-set hothead to a filmmaker with a compassionate approach and a golden touch.
His own dry spell made filmmaker David O. Russell, at fifty-five years old, more mature and confident as an adult and clearer about his vision: “My having struggled for some years has somehow made me a humbler, simpler person, and director, and got me closer to the characters that I want the actors to portray,” he’s said.
His 1994 debut, “Spanking the Monkey,” established his unique sensibility – one that uncovered humor and sympathetic characters in unlikely places. But his third and fourth features, 1999’s “Three Kings” and 2004’s “I Heart Huckabees,” became known as much for his offbeat style as for his altercations with the films’ stars – George Clooney and Lily Tomlin, respectively.
A dry spell before 2010’s knockout success of “The Fighter,” Mark Wahlberg’s passion project about welterweight boxer Micky Ward, which netted Christian Bale an Oscar in a supporting role, helped make him more mature and confident as an adult and clearer about his vision: “My having struggled for some years has somehow made me a humbler, simpler person, and director, and got me closer to the characters that I want the actors to portray,” he’s said.
With his next project, 2012’s “Silver Linings Playbook,” Russell guided the ensemble cast of Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Jacki Weaver to four Oscar nominations – Lawrence won for Best Actress – and landed him in illustrious company. He is only the ninth director to score at least seven acting nominations for two consecutive movies. (The others include Elia Kazan, Mike Nichols, Sidney Lumet, Warren Beatty, James L. Brooks, and William Wyler.) He also received nominations for directing “Playbook” and adapting the screenplay from Matthew Quick’s novel.
This month, Russell reunites with Bale, Amy Adams, Cooper, and Lawrence in “American Hustle.” Opening December 20, the film is a fictionalization of the late-1970s ABSCAM scandal with Bale as a con man forced to work for an FBI agent (Cooper). Adams plays his sexy partner, Lawrence his wild-card wife, and Jeremy Renner a volatile New Jersey political operator.
Learn more about Russell in my piece here at Word & Film.