The Beginner’s Guide: David O. Russell, Director

“There’s no such thing as nothing.”

Paranoid. Obsessive. Indulgent. Self-destructive. Meandering. The use of hysteria, depression or existential ennui as dominant themes in David O. Russell‘s splendidly wacky filmography speaks volumes about the stories that interest him. It would be an unfair though to reduce his cinematic legacy to this, but I will have you know that from his first feature film to his last release, Russell’s freakishly off-center characters have traversed through:

1. A substantially awkward student portrayal of coming-of-age sensibilities while battling Oedipal tension;
2. Going bonkers on a quest to find one’s biological parents that ends with a LSD-heavy modern twist of a typical Oscar Wilde third act;
3. Parodying war with humor so pointed and disturbing that it hurts to laugh;
4. The apparently clueless musings of people who call themselves existential detectives to hopelessly (and quite hilariously) search for the indecipherable meaning of the universe;
5. The travails of a boxer in the 1980s on his broken relationship with his brother;
6. An explosively dangerous love affair between two crazies that begins with a discussion on medicines they had to take when they were committed to a psychiatric facility;
7. A jazzy, ornamental take on the 1970s American dream (scam), some of which is borrowed from history ‒ to be ultimately colored with Russell’s kaleidoscopic penchant for madness.

David O. Russell has acted as a producer and co-director of a thirty-five minute documentary called Soldier’s Pay, which includes interviews from dozens of psychologists, soldiers and journalists to offer varying points of view on the harrowing effect of war on soldiers. Before debuting into feature films with Spanking the Monkey, he made two short films: Bingo Inferno –  A Parody on American Obsessions (1987) and Hairway to the Stars (1989). Here is a summary on why you should look out for his cinematic legacy:

Spanking the Monkey (1994)

Spanking the Monkey: The title of the film refers to a euphemistic expression of masturbation that is confided to the world in Russell’s usual cheeky brashness. The tagline of the film is ‘get a grip on yourself’. Go figure. A medical student is trapped in the throes of caretaking because his mother broke her leg, and his traveling father would rather have him home than send him to a prestigious summer internship. The story is essentially a cautionary sexual tale about a teenager’s confused impulses paired with an uncomfortably compelling recreation of the age-old Oedipus complex.

Right from his first feature film, Russell’s desire to dish out some sort of punishment to his audience becomes clear. We’re pulled by our collars to focus on the authenticity behind the protagonist’s worst decisions. While the film unravels Ray’s screwed-up life in 100 minutes, Russell is content with laughing at all its wonderful absurdity. With his directorial debut he jokingly crowns himself a perpetrator of a form of comedy that is highlighted with the most tragic and irrational of human flaws.

Flirting With Disaster (1996)

Russell’s acrid imbalance of pessimism and unrealistic expectations from life is put to life with actors in top form in Flirting With Disaster. It is a hilarious gathering of comic tropes that plague standardized movies: bewilderment, idiosyncrasies and other people being sexier than your spouse. The plot devices are toppled with an aplomb of genuinely funny moments, leading up to an ending where two perfectly mismatched couples have a midlife crisis, while in the same house downstairs, a character played by Richard Jenkins is tripping his head off on acid. Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Josh Brolin and Téa Leoni are all uniformly brilliant. Case in point: where else can you find a quote like  “I’ll forever have the image of you licking my wife’s armpit planted in my head”, if not in a Russell movie?

Three Kings (1999)

Easily my favorite David O. Russell film by a large margin, Three Kings is a blizzard of distressing glimpses at the inhumanity of war. Sketching his signature stylistic elements all over the plot with devil-may-care lunacy, he makes George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze scale the depths of catastrophic human notions in 1991 Iraq. Russell’s movie seems to howl with sarcastic guffaws on the stupidity of those in power who seem to be dead-sure of the inevitable necessity of war. Three Kings makes bitingly incisive observations on the Gulf War without losing its hold over the Hollywoodized facets of warfare. The urgent action sequences that fill in the quota of entertainment as the touchstone in war films are subjected to unmerciful criticism by jet-black humor.

Newton Sigel‘s cinematography deserves special mention because in addition to the visual dynamism of his camera and the quick-zooms which Russell has become quite famous for, the look of the film teeters towards ‘epic’ in scope. The film is funny beyond doubt, but notoriously so; it stabs at all the unspoken war genre conventions and twists the knife to make sure its central themes are driven home with a ferocity and anger that is striking in a film that masquerades as a satire.

I Heart Huckabees (2004)

I Heart Huckabees is one of those films which form a fans vs haters battleground fought over publicly on internet forums. It was (rightly) advertised as an ‘existentialist’ comedy, chock-full with dissimilar philosophical strands of thought that merge into one plot. Jason Schwartzman, Naomi Watts, Jude Law and Dustin Hoffman give their voices to the words of Russell and co-writer Jeff Baena with terrific flair which requires them to turn indulgent or refractory scenes into moments of sublime and thoughtful laughter. The film derails in parts owing to its borderline preachy sermons on the war of the individual against the whole and the nihilistic doctrine to cure those suffering at the hands of existentialist disputes, but is saved by a keen sense of humor. Mark Wahlberg is outstanding as the Tyler Durden of Russell-o-sphere, and in one knockout scene he delivers an incredibly wordy anti-consumerist speech to his wife and daughter that will make you laugh till your bones hurt. It is a sequence of improbable power: we are dangling between some profound and important questions about the state of our lives and the uprooting of a family.

Amidst this, Dustin Hoffman is seen struggling for a teddy bear through most of the sequence; the restlessness of the camera that capture this bountiful libation of mania carries a David O. Russell DNA mark all over its staging. “What happens in a meadow at dusk?” an adolescent Jonah Hill asks Schwartzman’s character on a battle for open spaces in a functioning economy at the dinner table. With immaculate comic timing, the parallel shouts of “Nothing!’ and “everything” drown out all other voices, and present the film’s central theme flawlessly in tune with the deranged characters.

The Fighter (2010)

The Fighter is a powerhouse. It has a nuclear warhead stockpiled in guise of a heart left brimming with a maddening dose of energetic storytelling, pathos, brilliant expository overtones smudging across the lines of docudramas with such ferocious rage that it ends as a spillover. And that’s a good thing. Christian Bale plays ‘Dicky’, the local legend/boxer who trains his brother “Irish” Mickey Ward (Mark Wahlberg) before he went pro. Amy Adams as his girlfriend (and future wife) Cherlene and Melissa Leo as his mother Alice are flawless. Mark Wahlberg carries the weight of the narrative’s conceptual as well as historical heft with an astounding physical performance, jabbing and prancing around with his wondrous acting chops both inside and outside the ring. But the film’s definitive performance comes from Christian Bale: the crack-addicted junkie who, after a bout in jail, cleans up to continue to train Mickey.

There are many scenes of exhilarating vivacity in the film, all underlined by Hoyte Van Hoytema‘s slightly tipsy camera that shares the screenplay’s violently zesty spirit of knockout punches to both the head and the body. The film’s greatest strength is its unsure line on whether it’s a sports movie or a family drama, so it just ends up being both in a typically unhinged David O. Russell way. The end product is an intense, vigorous shot of adrenaline in the form of film. Even when the plot seems to slow down to take a breath, or to allow us to take one, it gets back on its feet and land the concluding KO with plunging emotions hoisted safely on the shoulders of a miraculous cast.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Remember when Pat Solatano threw out Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms out the window, and his review of the classic novel could be summed up by an exclamatory “Stupid f*cking book” monologue? Literature aficionados like myself laughed through tears and admitted to loving Silver Linings Playbook after Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence bonded over their nutsy flaws. Lawrence picked up the Best Actress Oscar for this film. Play along with Russell’s adaptation of the wonderful Matthew Quick novel here, in what is fundamentally a tragicomedy that explores mental illness in the mold of a romantic comedy.

Jacki Weaver and legend Robert DeNiro are beyond exceptional in their roles as Pat’s parents and are aided by an accomplished supporting cast including Anupam Kher, Chris Tucker and Shea Wigham. Silver Linings Playbook succeeds because of Russell’s personal vendetta against heavy-handed sentimentalism. We buy the holes in these people’s personalities because of the nature of its presentation: it is intelligent, piercing, funny and confrontational in a way that makes one think. So when Danny talks about his meth addiction on top of an anxiety disorder, or when DeNiro chases away a pesky neighbor hell-bent on capturing Pat’s bi-polar episode, we laugh in spite of the knowledge that real people go through this. And it’s a difficult life. Russell’s stance in Silver Linings Playbook is almost Chaucerian: humanity is prone to instabilities and missteps, foolishness is unavoidable, and laughter is the appropriate response.

American Hustle (2013)

His latest feature film, American Hustle, was released two years ago. It would not be erroneous to imagine that I wrote this part of the post while walking alluringly along the blitz of a shiny corridor, my body frame highlighted by ultra-slow-motion and kinetic zoom-ins; champagne in one hand and glossy, 70s-friendly sunglasses to top off the superfluity of the frame. Regular players of Russell-o-sphere show up: Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale and a spirited Jennifer Lawrence. Louis C.K. gets a terrific part as Bradley Cooper’s sulking boss who never finishes an irritating ice-skating story which he provides in parts throughout the film. American Hustle scores the story with a vial of excess, and the actors drink from it with reckless abandon.

The Bee Gees, Duke Ellington, Elton John, Tom Jones, America: the soundtrack is a fascinating companion of the screenplay’s ebb and flow. The film received critical acclaim upon release. The extravagantly seductive production design, the farcical hair and make-up, as well as the crackerjack performances escalated a fictional period-film into a 140-minute spectacle with entertainment value. This movie wasn’t without the naysayers. The self-proclaimed critics on user pages have openly lambasted it for being too self-indulgent with long scenes that don’t ‘go anywhere’. That said, it is a treat for fans, showcasing a dazzling retro-world that has little to do with what really happened.

Trademark

One of the many important pointers for quack film analysts like me that signal the work of a great director is an immaculately picked-out soundtrack. Music melds the notions with which it was originally conceived to make way into a totally different scenario created by a different artist. If the film successfully resonates the emotional truth of that moment through a song, the narrative is propelled to a different sphere of meaning. And David O. Russell has unfailingly proven himself the master of this technique. Incorporating Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Elton John and many other definitive artists with Danny Elfman‘s original score with the most confounding of ease, his films very often slip into his own version of stream of consciousness. One that is aided with rock-n-roll delirium. Now all that needs to happen is for someone to mention any of his films to me, and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Good Times Bad Times’ starts playing in my head at ear-splitting volume.

On being asked about the strong performances in his films, he said, “There’s nothing better than an actor who is really, really hungry to show everything they’ve got.” The acclaimed filmmaker is also a semi-conscious champion of writing and directing powerful female roles, to which he replies, “Strong women are, to me, the secret to great cinema.” His films are invariably about people, real people, so that they may project their genuine fears, insecurities, passions, likes and dislikes that come across without a shred of insincerity. He tends to overdo a few of his emblematic mannerisms to paint around the lushness of his characters’ lives, but the effect is exquisite and randomly wistful all the same.

Coming up next: Joy

Uniting with his quintessential team of Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert DeNiro among others, Russell’s next film, Joy, is believed to be in post-production now. Lawrence portrays Joy Mangano, the single mother of three who invented the Miracle Mop which rose to a million-dollar shopping network on TV. The picture is being slotted near Christmas to allow a run at the Oscars, as both Russell (who was nominated for best director thrice) and Lawrence are favorites.

What is your favorite David O. Russell film? And if you haven’t any one of the aforementioned movies, what are you waiting for? Go ahead, bathe in the relentless beauty and laugh-a-minute hysteria of his movies.

(top image source: thefilmstage.com)