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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.'

David O. Russell

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David O. Russell
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: August 20
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Way
Ego
Think
Humble
Thinking
Journey
Laughing
Getting
Spiritual
Experience
Monk
Also
Worthwhile

More quotes by David O. Russell

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It's absurd that we're so quick to criticize Muslims for being fundamentalist when Christians can be just as extreme and fanatical and frightening.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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It's a closing of the mind that happens when you want to be lazy and go with the easiest answers, like the media do all the time in their sound bytes.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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A thousand years ago, scientists who wondered about consciousness and the nature of reality were burned at the stake. We still haven't recovered from that and it's left us with a culture that no longer investigates consciousness, except on the fringes.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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You're not supposed to become something else so you can get more. You're supposed to stay you and get through as yourself, because at least then you can count on that, and you don't have to ask yourself who you are half the time.
David O. Russell
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The gift of life is the gift to suffer sometimes and to embrace it, heartbreak and all.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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I hadn't made that movie before and when I ever met the real Joy Mangano, which happened because De Niro insisted we meet her and her father, that's what she felt like to us. She impressed us with her quiet, serene authority with herself.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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Bush was in a shithole on September 10th. 9/11 was the best thing that ever happened to him.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell
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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.
David O. Russell