Reviewed by Kelly Bader. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2014.<\/p>\n
Waiting outside the Arlington for the presentation of the Outstanding Director\u2019s Award, I noted that the crowd numbers were fairly light.\u00a0 The red carpet activity was almost non-existent.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t giving a good impression for the night ahead.\u00a0 Fortunately, these signs in the end meant nothing as the evening turned out to be a fantastic beginning for this novice to the Santa Barbara Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Santa Barbara\u2019s own Roger Durling introduced David O. Russell.\u00a0 Russell came off very personable and likeable right from the start.\u00a0 In fact he almost didn\u2019t need Durling interviewing him, he just kept rambling.\u00a0 At one point Durling mentioned that maybe he should leave, as he wasn\u2019t really needed.\u00a0 Russell assured him to just go with the flow, that often we over think things and sometimes the best moments just happen on their own.<\/p>\n
This statement was an intro to Russell\u2019s explanation that he had been advised in his past to be a bit more flexible.\u00a0 That he had a \u201chead in my ass period\u201d that he learned to shake.\u00a0 Russell is a self-taught director, who didn\u2019t go to film school.\u00a0 This can be an advantage, as he just doesn\u2019t know he isn\u2019t doing something right.\u00a0 Russell claims that when he films, he treats each scene as if it is the last one to film.\u00a0 There was a reference to an \u201cEagles\u201d documentary where Glenn Frey spoke about song writing and said, \u201cYou have to write a lot of songs.\u00a0 You\u2019ll write nine bad one\u2019s and then you\u2019ll get one great one.\u201d\u00a0 Russell claims the same is true of directing.\u00a0 You have to keep at it, knowing you\u2019ll have some bad films along the way.\u00a0 It makes it even that much better when you get that one great one.<\/p>\n
Speaking of music there was a very special moment when Russell and Durling spoke about having actors sing in a film.\u00a0 Russell spoke about his film, \u201cThe Fighter\u201d, where he filmed a scene from the back seat of a car.\u00a0 Christian Bale began to sing an old Bee Gee\u2019s song called \u201cI Started a Joke\u201d.\u00a0 At this point Durling sang a few words and was joined by Russell.\u00a0 They discussed how important music can be in film and how it can convey a mood that often the spoken word cannot.\u00a0 That Russell likes to use these moments, because in real life we all relate things to song.<\/p>\n
The audience was given a nice retrospective of Russell\u2019s work.\u00a0 Durling provided insightful discussion before and after each film clip.\u00a0 Russell gave some personal reflections after each clip as to what was transpiring in his life during the course of each of his films.\u00a0 For instance, \u201cSilver Linings Playbook\u201d came just after having some difficult dealings with his teenage, bi-polar son.<\/p>\n
It was a fantastic evening that was extremely entertaining.\u00a0 I believe that audience members left wanting to seek out Russell\u2019s other films.\u00a0 This type of personal talk just could not be scripted. It was like having a cup of coffee with an old friend and catching up with each other.\u00a0 This was an intimate evening that just happened naturally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Kelly Bader. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2014. Waiting outside the Arlington for the presentation of the Outstanding Director\u2019s Award, I noted that the crowd numbers were fairly light.\u00a0 The red carpet activity was almost non-existent.\u00a0 This wasn\u2019t giving a good impression for the night ahead.\u00a0 Fortunately, these signs in the end […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,216,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2014","category-tributes-and-qas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}