Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrassis an English film director, film producer, screenwriter and former journalist. He specialises in dramatisations of real-life events and is known for his signature use of hand-held cameras. His early film Bloody Sunday won the Golden Bear at 52nd Berlin International Film Festival. Other films he has directed include three in the Bourne action/thriller series: The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Jason Bourne; United 93, for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Director, and received an...
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth13 August 1955
views way scripts
All directors make films in individual ways. But the classical kind of view of filmmaking is that you have a script and it's very linear.
cutting scripts film
There's a script, then you're going to shoot the script and then you cut that and then that's the end of the film. And that's never really been how I've seen it.
film made written
Most of the films that I've written, made in my life, I've written. Not all, but most I would say.
character giving trying
You're trying to create a screenplay and your screenplay is there to give you a structure, rigidity, situational awareness, who the characters are, what do they want, what's the shape of the thing.
real mean thinking
I think when you think of my films, I think hopefully you think of an extreme sort of real unfolding, real-time, performed, feeling semi-improvised, you know what I mean, all that.
editing trying shooting
I always try and bring screenplay, shooting and editing into a sort of symbiotic - as close into alignment as you possibly can get them, consistent, obviously, with the resources that you've got and the time you've got available.
firsts productions posts
You sort of can't talk about the post production unless you talk about what comes first.
thinking talking people
Why are people saying it's too soon? Like the people on that flight, we need to agree about what to do about terrorism. And I think we need to have that conversation now.
airplane people aeroplanes
The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional.
drama responsibility reality
You face challenges and you have to make choices. You're weighing the necessary responsibility toward reality and authenticity and of course the need to create a compressed drama over two hours.
writing cutting different
There's a film you write, there's a film you shoot, and there's a film that you cut - and they're all different.
real drama acting
In the end, it's acting, it's not real. But every director will tell you that you have to create conditions that create tension, because tension is what makes drama feel real.
giving remember painful
Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom.
conflict inhabit ourselves people react worldwide
They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today.