David O. Russell
I think any spiritual experience that's worthwhile is not about ego and it will humble you in some way. And also, a Zen monk once said to me, 'If you're not laughing, then you're not getting it.'Collection: Experience
I got put on jury duty, which is where I learned how to write.
One of the things I've discovered at my age is I must have enchantment. And that was not clear to me in my earlier years. When I look at my favorite films, the Frank Capra - even Scorsese, even 'Goodfellas,' what makes that movie so remarkable is there's enchantment in their world.
I just love real characters; they're not pretentious, and every emotion is on the surface, they're regular working people. Their likes, their dislikes, their loves, their hates, their passions; they're all right there on the surface.
I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it's just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn't get too caught up in, but when it happens - boy! I respect it.
That's the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there's no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego's reaction. That's what takes people out of the fight half the time.
That's what takes people out of the fight half the time. They get hit and half the reaction is your ego is saying, 'I cannot believe that person just lit me up - how humiliating.'
The closer you stay to emotional authenticity and people, character authenticity, the less you can go wrong. That's how I feel now, no matter what you're doing.
I was frustrated because I couldn't get going, as I was trying to figure out how to make films. I had various jobs, I taught a SAT class, I was a bartender, I had a day job at an office and was making short films.
I think what makes compelling fiction or cinema is when you're basically taking the most intense moments of experience and you're creating a song or a narrative out of it.
I've done my best to work from a place of humility - always looking over your shoulder saying, 'Does this suck?' and I think that's a good way to work. The other way to work is where you start to think, 'I'm on fire, I'm amazing!' and I don't think that's the way to work.
There's nothing better than an actor who is really, really hungry to show everything they've got.
I would say that when I came into this chapter of my filmmaking career, starting with 'The Fighter,' there was this sense that you have to go from your instincts and you have to go from your gut, and you have to not hesitate and you have to not hedge.
Some of Jimmy Stewart's performance in 'It's A Wonderful Life' is some of the most disturbing performance he ever did, when he falls apart and when he breaks down.
'The Fighter' was about a family struggling to overcome and fighting each other sometimes, and I went back and rewrote this script which I had written for my son initially because my son has mood disorder.
I feel profoundly blessed. I feel it's a great privilege to make any motion picture.
You know, veterans come home and they may not be bipolar, but after they've been through a war with PTSD or a head injury, their families have a handful when they come home.
I'm always looking for a way to surprise audiences. That's, I feel, my job as a director. I felt that Amy Adams playing a tough woman in 'The Fighter' was a surprise. People saw her as a princess.
I think I land somewhere between Scorsese and Capra in what I'm drawn to emotionally; I'm drawn to very intense emotion. Capra freaked people out when they saw Jimmy Stewart lose it in 'It's a Wonderful Life.'
The whole trick is to make it feel like you're spying on real people's lives as they get through the day. When I'm writing, I have to trick myself as a writer. If I consciously say, 'I'm writing,' I feel all this pressure and somehow it doesn't feel as real as when it doesn't seem to count as much.
When I write an email where I outlined a whole scene, it just came out of my unconscious, it comes from a deeper place. The same thing happens when the actors go, take after take, and just get lost in it. When you're in a house, you don't think about being in the house; you're just there.
I did a dance sequence in my second short film, which was my best short film, called 'Hairway to the Stars,' and I think Chris Wink, the founder of Blue Man Group, was in that. It's a black-and-white dance sequence. We were Glorious Food waiters together.
What do we have in life, really? If we're lucky we get to a certain age, and we have each other. We have the food we like. We have our crazy little rituals. And we have each other.
That's the most beautiful thing that I like about boxing: you can take a punch. The biggest thing about taking a punch is your ego reacts and there's no better spiritual lesson than trying to not pay attention to your ego's reaction.Collection: Beautiful
There's always hope. Never give up. Walk slowly and drink lots of water. It ain't a sprint.Collection: Giving Up
The romance is essential. I love the love. I don't love just people struggling. I love what people are struggling for. That moves me. I love watching people be loving, and I find it enchanting, magical and transporting. It's one of the reasons that I go to the movies, and that's why I like putting it in movies.Collection: Struggle
That's just how I see things. I think things that are the most dramatic or tragic can also look the most ridiculous and funny. That's part of being human.Collection: Thinking
The cinema that I make is a cinema about people, emotion, humanity and passion. It's not just about what they struggle through, but what they live for. That's what I love. The music they love, the people they love, the clothing, the hair and the life that they loveCollection: Struggle
Anything you could ever want or be you already have and are.Collection: Want
The endings for all my characters seem sufficiently human and messy for me to feel comfortable with them. In some ways they have only moved an inch, but sometimes an inch is a great distance.Collection: Distance
I make every movie and every scene like it could be my last. That's the only way I know how to make cinema that stands on its feet. I have to treat it like that. It has to be life and death stakes.Collection: Feet
Life just happens the way it's supposed to happen. It delivers you to where it delivers you.Collection: Way
The idea that anyone would think their religious ideas make them morally superior is just preposterous.Collection: Religious
The holy trifecta of directing and filmmaking is character emotion, camera movement and music. When you hit those three, that's magical. That's what I'm trying to do.Collection: Character
You should always make it like it's your last film. That's my personal belief. Every filmmaker is going to have another belief... That's the only way I know to try to make a film that might be good. You got to take it real seriously like it's your last thing.Collection: Real
Gay marriage is a complete red herring to distract everyone from the economy and the war and health care and education.Collection: War
If you just work on your craft hard, that's your only hope of doing anything worthwhile.Collection: Crafts
David O. Russell's best films are thrilling high wire acts that run the moment to moment risk of tumbling to the ground. In his latest, "Joy," Russell has more trouble than usual keeping his balance on the wire.Collection: Running
The gift of life is the gift to suffer sometimes and to embrace it, heartbreak and all.Collection: Suffering
I think I land somewhere between Scorsese and Capra in what I'm drawn to emotionally; I'm drawn to very intense emotion. Capra freaked people out when they saw Jimmy Stewart lose it in 'It's a Wonderful Life.Collection: Thinking
Sadly, this picture [ Joy] does not go from strength to strength. It sinks into a morass of tedious obstacles to this woman's success. Joy the person may be able to surmount all barriers, but the film with her name on it is not so fortunate.Collection: Names
As people, [my parents were] very colorful, very talkative, passionate, they really loved each other. But that also meant heated, it meant there was a lot of drama in the house. Which is good for a filmmaker, I think.Collection: Drama
The great lesson about filmmaking is never take "no" for an answer, especially if you have a lot of passion and inspiration to do something.Collection: Inspiration
When most people turn on their TVs, they don't expect a frank discussion of philosophical ideas in their practical context. Or any context.Collection: Philosophical
I think if religion closes discussion or exchange of ideas or curiosity about other views, it's not true to its core.Collection: Thinking
I think that everybody does hustle in order to survive. That doesn't mean lying - it's more about how you handle situations.Collection: Lying
It's easier to control people when they're afraid.Collection: People
You know when you're hungry and excited and you feel humble about it? I like that. In the past, when things were not clear, I think I wasn't ... I didn't have my feet on the ground as much, maybe, 10 years ago. So I just feel like this is a good place to be now, to feel that you want to tell stories from this place and that you're excited to tell stories from this place because you know what you love. I know what I love right now.Collection: Humble
You can't force a movie to happen. Movies happen when they're supposed to happen. Everything happens in God's time. I really believe that.Collection: Believe
The Fighter was about a family struggling to overcome and fighting each other sometimes, and I went back and rewrote this script which I had written for my son initially because my son has mood disorder.Collection: Struggle