Emotional Continuity Priority

storytelling principle, championed by director David O. Russell, that prioritizes the authentic emotional through-line of a character or scene above all other forms of continuity. Physical geography, spatial logic, and even linear sequence can be sacrificed or manipulated in the edit if doing so achieves a more potent or truthful emotional progression. For the editor, this means being free to disregard spatial mismatches or temporal jumps in favor of a cut that feels emotionally right.