David O Russell

It would be said that with Spike Jonze , Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson , he forms a generation of directors marked by extreme independence to the point of surrealism. David O. Russell ‘s life becomes a survival story that has a lot to do with what he tells in his best films. Born on August 20, 1958, New Yorker David Owen Russell is the son of Bernard, a sales executive for the publishing house Simon & Schuster, of Russian ancestry, and Maria, of Italian origin. Although his father professed the Jewish religion and his mother was Catholic, they raised his son in the most absolute atheism.

He graduated in Political Science from Amherst College in 1991. He made his film debut with the short Bingo Inferno: A Parody on American Obsessions , which denounces the problem of addiction in a hilarious tone of comedy, through the portrait of a deranged family: the father can’t stop watching TV, while the gambling mother never leaves bingo. It is followed by Hairway to the Stars , also humorously, where a woman who goes to the hairdresser puts her marriage in jeopardy.

Although these works were a good cover letter, it takes Russell three years to raise money for his first feature, Spanking the Monkey ., a wacky comedy with gross details (the title refers to masturbation), which he was finally able to film after receiving financial support from the New York State Council for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. It portrays the difficult living conditions of a humble family. Raymond, the teenage son with skyrocketing hormones, is forced to take care of his mother during the holidays, who has been left in bed after a suicide attempt, because his father, a salesman, has to go away for reasons of worked. O. Russell returns to lecture on the family theme. “In my house and in my friends’ houses it was common for parents to never be around. Even when they seemed to be physically close, they really weren’t.” The film is so popular that O. Russell becomes the ‘enfant terrible’ from the gafapasta ‘indie’ scene, to the point that it won the audience award at Sundance, and best first feature and screenplay, at the Independent Spirit. The boy had a promising future ahead of him.

He responded to the high expectations generated by Flirting with Disaster , a fresh comedy with Ben Stiller and Patricia Arquette , also about family relationships. It was the first of his tapes to achieve decent international distribution, and for audiences unfamiliar with O. Russell it was a pleasant surprise. Stiller played Mel Coplin, who is not happy despite being married to a beaut who just gave birth to an adorable baby. While trying to solve sexual problems with her wife, Mel undertakes a trip with her and a psychologist to meet her biological parents, since he is adopted.

He maintained the gross excesses that characterize the first stage of his filmography. But he achieves enormous success, so O. Russell can afford to shoot his next job, Three Kings , in a big way, with a first-rate star, George Clooney , the latter’s then very close friend Mark Wahlberg (Clooney and Wahlberg also filmed together shortly after The Perfect Storm ), the rapper Ice Cube and Spike Jonze , who at that time would also succeed as a director with How to be John Malkovich . During filming, O. Russell had tremendous arguments with George Clooney. “I couldn’t work with him again because life is too short,” Clooney went on to declare. But nevertheless, the filmmaker hit it off with Wahlberg, who was to play a key role in his later career.

In the film, US soldiers stationed in Iraq during the first Gulf War hatch a plan to steal Kuwaiti gold stolen by Saddam Hussein. The film was very critical of US foreign policy, emphasizing the fact that first the area is intervened, and then the Iraqi population is abandoned, leaving it in the hands of the fearsome dictator. It did well at the box office and garnered rave reviews.

Enthroned by his enormous success, David O. Russell’s crown went up to his head, and he began the implementation of his most pretentious film. It takes him five years to ‘place’ a producer of the existentialist Strange Coincidences , with a bizarre plot. The leader of an environmental group (Jason Scharztman), who is trying to stop the construction of a new shopping center, is convinced that there are no coincidences, but that everything happens for a reason, so to prove it, he enlists the help of curious people. therapists, Bernard ( Dustin Hoffman ) and Vivian ( Lily Tomlin ), who define themselves as ‘existential detectives’, as they try to find the vital essence of their clients. The cast also brought back Mark Wahlbergplaying a crazed philosopher firefighter. The shooting was hell, this time marked by strong discussions with Lily Tomlin , which made it to the newspapers. Although a critique of fake activism and absurd alternative therapies can be gleaned from the film, the truth is that it doesn’t stop working, its delirious tone (influenced by Spike Jonze ) did not convince the public, and it was such a commercial failure that it almost ended. with the career of O. Russell.

But Russell still had a worse hell to live through. No one is betting on him, but he starts shooting independently financed Nailed , a low-budget political satire with Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal . He himself had written the script with Kristin Gore, the daughter of Al Gore himself, the champion of environmentalism. The bad thing is that the company that he supposedly endorsed him, ThinkFilm (responsible for titles like En el límite del amor) ultimately fails him, so O. Russell is unable to pay his actors. Their union decides to stop filming. Finally, the work remains unfinished. On a personal level, he suffers a tremendous crisis. He has been married since 1992 to producer Janet Grillo, with whom he has a son, Matthew Antonio Grillo Russell. But in 2007, Grillo gets fed up with him – he argues that he has become unbearable at that time – and the divorce takes place.

After several years in limbo, Mark Wahlberg comes to his aid , an actor who had overcome his personal problems by becoming a prototype of a model worker, who is committed to second chances. He had found a terrific script on this subject, which he was going to produce and star in, The Fighter , for which he enlists O. Russell to direct. The truth is that he could not have made a better choice; the filmmaker identifies perfectly with what the film tells, the efforts of a once promising boxer ( Christian Bale), whose career fell apart, and who has become addicted to crack, for training his brother Micky (Wahlberg), solid promise of the ring. He also recovers the family problems that interest O. Russell so much, since Micky is helped by his mother and his girlfriend, and he considers that if he wants to succeed, he must get rid of his troublesome brother.

The play turns out to be round. The Fighter gets 7 Oscar nominations and wins in both supporting categories, male ( Christian Bale ) and female ( Melissa Leo ). O. Russell has managed to come out on top and immediately shoots The Silver Linings Playbook , adapted from a novel by Matthew Quick , although one would say full of autobiographical elements. Pat ( Bradley Cooper )) leaves a mental institution after eight months locked up for having lost his temper when he surprised his wife with another man. He tries to win her back, despite her restraining order, with the help of Tiffany (an especially brilliant Jennifer Lawrence), a troubled sex addict who is also trying to regenerate. Despite the extreme situation of its protagonists, the film, according to its title, offers a very sincere positive look, since David O. Russell himself has managed to get out of his personal rut. The Silver Linings Playbook is competing for 8 Oscars, in the categories Editing, Lead Actor ( Bradley Cooper ), Lead Actress ( Jennifer Lawrence ), Supporting Actor (Robert De Niro ), supporting actress ( Jacki Weaver ), adapted screenplay ( David O. Russell himself ), directing and film.