David Owen Russell (born August 20, 1958) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. His early directing career includes the comedy films Spanking the Monkey (1994), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Three Kings (1999) and I ♥ Huckabees (2004).
Background
Russell was born in Manhattan, to Maria (née Muzio) and Bernard (Markovski) Russell. His parents worked for Simon & Schuster; his father was the vice president of sales for the company and his mother was a secretary there.[8] His father was from a Russian Jewish family and his mother was Italian American (of Lucanian descent). Russell's maternal grandparents were Frank Muzio, born in Craco, and Philomena Brancata, born in Ferrandina, both in the province of Matera. His paternal grandfather, a butcher from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, lost many of his relatives in concentration camps.
Education
Russell was raised in Larchmont, New York, in an atheist, middle-class household. When he was 13, he made his first film for a school project and used a Super 8 film camera to film people in New York City. He attended Mamaroneck High School, where he was voted "Class Rebel". He fell in love with film in his teens (his favorite movies included Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and Shampoo) but aspired to become a writer; Russell started a newspaper in high school and wrote short stories. His parents worked for a publishing company, so he grew up in a household filled with books and novels.
Russell received his A.B. degree from Amherst College, where he majored in English and Political Science, in 1981. He wrote his senior thesis on the United States intervention in Chile from 1963 to 1973.
Career
After graduating from Amherst, Russell traveled to Nicaragua and taught in a Sandinista literacy program. He worked manual labor jobs, including waitering, bartending, and catering. Some of his bartending colleagues included members of the Blue Man Group. He worked for a booksellers' association and later became a community organizer in Maine. He used video equipment to document slums and bad housing conditions, which later became a documentary of Lewiston, Maine. Russell was a political activist and canvassed and raised money in neighborhoods; he also did community work in Boston's South End. In addition to working in several day jobs, he began to write short films.
Russell directed a documentary about Panamanian immigrants in Boston, which led to a job as a production assistant on a PBS series called Smithsonian World. In 1987, Russell wrote, produced, and directed Bingo Inferno: A Parody on American Obsessions, a film about an obsessive bingo-playing mother. Two years later, he made another short titled Hairway to the Stars, which featured Bette Davis and William Hickey. Both shorts were shown at the Sundance Film Festival.
After Russell made an award-winning short film for a Boston television station, he received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.[8] Instead of the money going towards a feature about a fortune cookie writer, he decided to make Spanking the Monkey, a film about an incestuous mother-son relationship. As a result, Russell had to return the funds to the NEA.
Spanking the Monkey, the 1994 independent dark comedy, was his first directorial effort. The film was produced by Dean Silvers, and starred Jeremy Davies as a troubled young man and Alberta Watson as his lonely mother. Despite the controversial subject matter, the film received critical acclaim[26] and won him Best First Screenplay and Best First Feature from the Independent Spirit Awards, as well as the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
His next project was the Miramax comedy Flirting with Disaster (1996), his second collaboration with Dean Silvers, and first with Harvey Weinstein. The film follows a neurotic man (Ben Stiller) who travels with his wife (Patricia Arquette) and a high-strung caseworker (Téa Leoni) to find his biological parents. The film also starred Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Josh Brolin, Richard Jenkins, and Lily Tomlin. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, and was well received by most critics. Roger Ebert said of the direction, "Russell finds the strong central line all screwball begins with, the seemingly serious mission or quest, and then throws darts at a map of the United States as he creates his characters." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'B' and declared it "one of the ha-ha funniest comedies currently at a theater near you."
The success of those two films led to the satirical Gulf War black comedy Three Kings, starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze. Adapted from an earlier script by former stand-up comic John Ridley, the film follows three American GIs who devise a plan to steal hidden Kuwaiti gold during the 1991 Iraqi uprising against Saddam Hussein. Filmed in the deserts of Arizona, California and Mexico, and featuring actual Iraqi refugees as extras, Russell used several unique cinematic techniques to achieve a feeling of realism. He filmed using handheld cameras and Steadicam, and shot on Ektachrome slide photography stock that was cross processed in colour negative chemicals, to reproduce "the odd colour of the newspaper images of the Gulf War." He also insisted on filming all of the explosions in one shot, unlike a typical action film.
Russell's next project was the existential comedy I ♥ Huckabees. Russell had conflicts with Lily Tomlin during its filming, and in March 2007, two videos were leaked onto YouTube portraying on-set arguments between Russell and Tomlin, in which among other things he called her sexist names. These abusive tirades by Russell were first reported in a 2004 New York Times article by Sharon Waxman in which she describes him calling Tomlin "...the crudest word imaginable, in front of the actors and crew." Additionally Waxman describes Russell storming off the set and back on again, continually shouting, which is corroborated by the leaked videos. On the set, actors were sometimes driven to their wits' ends after hours of takes. Afterward, Tomlin remarked that she and Russell are "fine", saying, "I'd rather have someone human and available and raw and open. Russell's next project was the existential comedy I ♥ Huckabees. Russell had conflicts with Lily Tomlin during its filming, and in March 2007, two videos were leaked onto YouTube portraying on-set arguments between Russell and Tomlin, in which among other things he called her sexist names. These abusive tirades by Russell were first reported in a 2004 New York Times article by Sharon Waxman in which she describes him calling Tomlin "...the crudest word imaginable, in front of the actors and crew." Additionally Waxman describes Russell storming off the set and back on again, continually shouting, which is corroborated by the leaked videos. On the set, actors were sometimes driven to their wits' ends after hours of takes. Afterward, Tomlin remarked that she and Russell are "fine", saying, "I'd rather have someone human and available and raw and open.
In January 2014, it was announced that Russell would rewrite and direct a comedy-drama film about American inventor and entrepreneur Joy Mangano, a struggling Long Island single mother of three children. Jennifer Lawrence played the lead role in the film. John Davis and John Fox produced the film for Davis Entertainment, along with Ken Mok, while 20th Century Fox holds the distribution rights. Principal photography began on February 17, 2015, and the film, titled Joy, was released on December 25, 2015. The film received mixed to positive reviews, focusing mainly on the strong central performance by actor Jennifer Lawrence, Russell's direction, and the supporting performances by Dianne Ladd, Robert De Niro, and company. Featured music in the film was a driving force behind the narrative, including a reworked a cappella version of Cream's "I Feel Free". Strong box office greeted the film's first five days, with a $5900-per-screen average, and 25 million dollars in gross receipts, according to Box Office Mojo; it grossed a worldwide total of over $101 million.
The film was nominated for 2 Golden Globe Awards, including Best Musical or Comedy, and Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy for Jennifer Lawrence, which she won. Lawrence was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the film's only Oscar nomination.
(Buy Joy: Read 1654 Movies & TV Reviews - Amazon.com)
Personality
Russell has regularly collaborated with actors, and many of these frequent collaborators appear in the same movies or as ensemble casts. Russell said “People ask me why I collaborate with her so much, or Robert De Niro or Bradley Cooper. My first answer would be this: Bette Davis collaborated with William Wyler on five films. Katharine Hepburn and George Cukor collaborated on seven films. Katharine Hepburn collaborated with George Stevens on three films. Scorsese with Robert De Niro, eight films. I think DiCaprio is up about six. If you’re friends with somebody and you happen to like and respect each other, you can inspire each other,” on the interview with IndieWire.
Mark Wahlberg partnered with Russell in Three Kings , I ♥ Huckabees, and The Fighter, while Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro all appeared in Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Joy. Christian Bale and Amy Adams both appeared in The Fighter and American Hustle.
Connections
Russell was married to Janet Grillo, who was a producer at Fine Line Features, from 1992 to 2007. He has been with his partner, Holly Davis, since 2007. Davis is a costume designer. Russell has two children: one with Grillo and an adopted son with Davis. He resides in Santa Monica, California, and is an advocate for mental illness treatment and support, and an active supporter of Autism research. Russell’s efforts saw him named the “Essential Puzzle Piece honoree” by the Light Up the Night Gala for Autism.
In 2013 Russell visited Washington DC to meet with Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Debbie Stabenow to discuss a new bill regarding Mental Health Care. In May 2014 Russell participated in a panel at Paley Center for the Media that discussed projects which have brought to light the stigmas and suffering associated with mental illness. Russell serves on the Creative Council of Represent.Us, a nonpartisan anti-corruption organization.