David O. Russell: In Conversation

Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times

David Russell, the director of "American Hustle."

You could argue that, with his new film, "American Hustle," coming on the heels of "The Fighter" and "Silver Linings Playbook," David O. Russell has put together the best trifecta of any active American filmmaker. "The Fighter" earned seven Oscar nominations; "Silver Linings" received eight; and "American Hustle" was just named the year's best film by the New York Film Critics Circle. Early in his career, Russell developed a reputation as a brilliant but difficult director; George Clooney said the two actually came to blows on the set of Russell's third film, "Three Kings," and later a YouTube video circulated of Lily Tomlin and Russell in a full-throated, expletive-laced shouting match on the set of his fourth film, "I Heart Huckabees." Whether­ the characterization was fair, Russell has since undergone a personal, artistic and, ultimately, professional transformation. He regards "Hustle," a highly fictionalized version of the Abscam scandal of the late '70s and early '80s, as the third in a loose trilogy of films about ordinary people trying to live passionate lives. It's a journey he has had some experience with firsthand.

Everett Collection

Russell on the set of "Three Kings" (1999), with George Clooney.

Neal Gabler: "American Hustle" is your third film in the last four years. There were six years between "I Heart Huckabees" in 2004 and "The Fighter" in 2010, during which you didn't release a single picture. What happened?

David O. Russell: A lot of things happened. I was very humbled. But that was good. Humbled in the sense that I had gotten divorced and I was helping to raise a son who faces bipolar issues. But I had also lost my way in terms of what kind of movie did I want to make. I knew the feelings I wanted to put in "Huckabees." But you're trying to make a kind of movie that you've never made before, and maybe it's not your kind of movie, and maybe it leans too much on ideas. With "The Fighter," I was at a place where I was ready to know where my heart and mind were going to be invested. And it became those people. I love these people — the details of these people who live in these ways that are very rich. To me, it was about the world of these people, how they felt and how they talked to each other. They are always in a predicament at the beginning where they're at a place they don't want to be, and they spend the whole movie reckoning how to get through, and if they want to get through, if life is worth living, and if they cannot only survive but feel a passion for life. It's the enchantment of lives. I really don't want to make a film that doesn't have that enchantment in it.

N.G.: Your last three films have been very emotion-rich, which is different from your first four films — "Spanking the Monkey," "Flirting With Disaster," "Three Kings" and "I Heart Huckabees" — which were very idiosyncratic.

D.R.: I feel like I have a direction that's very clear to me now. I have a great love and a feeling for a particular kind of character and story, which I don't think I ever could have said earlier of my first four films. It started with "The Fighter." I had written "Silver Linings Playbook" before that, but I didn't have the chance to make it. After "The Fighter," I got a chance to make it, and it became a companion volume. If I had leaned a little bit more on the fabric of the emotion, I think "Huckabees" would feel more like these last three films.

N.G.: What you're describing sounds like a kind of artistic revelation.

D.R.: I had overthought certain films so much that I walked away from a couple of them. When I made "The Fighter," I said to myself, "Mr. Overthinking Things, how about really, really just do it as good as you can from your heart. Can you do that? Well, actually just try to do that. That would be an achievement." For whatever reason, I came to appreciate and respect the honor and privilege of telling such human stories. The emotion is what I want.

N.G.: You are not exactly the first director anyone would have thought of for "The Fighter." You were known for black comedies.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

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