Seen this movie recently and while it lacks visual flair in his direction and has a "more-conventional-than-I-thought" plot, David O'Russell's shines in the acting he squeezes out of EVERYONE in his cast. One could argue that his job is made easy by the talented cast he roped to do this movie which is a good argument and according to Backstage, there could be alot of truth to that:
Although the film stars box office magnets such as Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert De Niro, Russell looks for the unexpected in every actor he casts. “We make sure that they’re not overexposed and that you haven’t seen them do this one part before,” Vernieu says of the actors she brings in. Although actors like Jacki Weaver and John Ortiz, who have supporting parts in the film, are solid working actors, they were new to Russell. “There’s a lot of times where some people do a certain thing, so it’s all about trying to kind of reinvent that,” Vernieu adds. Russell hosted work sessions with the lead actors before shooting began...However, I am sure there is alot more to it and, based on his past work, Russell definitely seems to be an "actor's director." Cue the Yahoo! interview with Russell:
What is the key to starting off on the right foot with an actor? The moment we meet, we begin this relationship that is very personal and has a warmth and humanness to it -- and intention. I'm honest about who I am and what I'm after in terms of a voice and a person. And I welcome their feelings and questions, together with the sense that this is a very special thing we're doing. There has to be that excitement and passion and desire -- I want them to feel that from me, and I want to feel that from them. I'm willing to embrass myself, or to show them my humanness myself, and that allows them to show their humanness.
I would say the most important thing is feeling that I know what I want to do. It's very specific, it's very personal, it's very emotional to me. And I'm very confident in them, even before they are. Even if there are moments of not knowing what we're doing, I'm comfortable with those moments. They don't cause anxiety or panic.
Did they used to cause panic? Well, I know what it's like to go down a road making a movie when you don't know your target starting out. That's a much harder way to make a movie, and I don't want to do that. I want to at least know the voice or the feeling that I love. And I do mean the word love. For me, that's been the great discovery of the last two movies: I have great passion and love for the worlds and the characters. And I love each character as I would my own son, for better or worse. That means you hate them sometimes a little bit, but I can take the view of any character in the movie and see the whole movie from their point of view.
When you get on the set, you're known for positioning yourself close to the actors and giving directions as the camera is rolling. When we first read the scene together, whether it's in a room or on the set, very often that's when it comes to life. And when we get on the set to put it on its feet, we may work out the blocking in a very general sense, and then I'll just start shooting the rehearsal.
There's a looseness that comes with that, because I will talk to them as I would during a rehearsal. I might say, "Try it like this" or "How about that?"
And then as we keep going, eventually there are long sections where I'm not saying a word. If I throw a word in later, it's out of sense of joy or enjoyment or excitement. So in the flow of it, I might say "Try it quiet" or "What if you hit that word harder?" or "What if you said this word instead?"
When I spoke to Jennifer, she talked about the scene between her and Bradley in the diner. She said at a certain point you asked them to slow the dialogue way down, and that it felt very strange and wrong to them at first but ended up being the right choice. I remember it well. That scene is a very important scene. So much is happening: They're making a secret pact that is illegal, when she says she'll get a letter to his wife. And it's also an emotional pact. She's divulging things about herself. She's opening up and telling him about who she is and what happened to her.
The secrecy of the collusion, the intimacy of their deal, there was something hot about it. At the same time they were supposed to be working on getting the letter to his wife, they were really getting closer together. So that was the subtext.
So I said, "Let's do it in this more collusive, secretive way, like when you lean into somebody." And it took on a different feeling. That's where it took on an intensity and a hot intimacy.
Do you ever find actors who aren't comfortable with your process? That happened in my first three movies, but that's because I didn't figure it out before I made the movie the way I do now. Now I want to have that family feeling that we're all in this together. It's also knowing when an actor doesn't want to work in a certain way. You need to treat Robert De Niro very differently than you treat Bradley Cooper or Christian Bale or Jennifer Lawrence or Amy Adams. Some actors, I know that I must never speak to that actor about crying, because it's going to make it hard for them to cry. That's how I got De Niro to cry in this movie, because I never spoke to him about it, I never wrote it, and then it happened.
[Pause] I need to know when to back off and shut up; that's a big part of it. It's probably not that different from being a coach on a good team. You need to know when to shut up and let the team struggle, and when to intervene and say, "Hold on, let's redirect what we're doing here."Aaaaaaaand... rounding up some critical analysis:
Louise Keller:
It starts to fray about halfway through as it shifts into a more conventional mode, taking on the usual trappings of the genre and making its way to a predictable resolution...Matt Neal:
This is a rom-com dressed up as an Oscar-baiting "dramedy". It's a good rom-com thanks to it's edge... but occasionally has the bad traits of a bad rom-com.Mark Pfeiffer:
On the surface Silver Linings Playbook is a raucous romantic comedy, but its real interests are superstition and delusion.Andrew O'Hehir:
It's a rom-com that succeeds in revitalizing that discredited genre where so many others have failed, injecting it with the grit and emotion of realist drama rather than with amped-up whimsy or social satire or montages of people walking on the beach.Colin Covert:
Silver Linings Playbook tells us that happily-ever-after may depend on finding people who coexist with our lunacy, not ones who can lead us out of it. In any case, it's crazy good.
No comments:
Post a Comment