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
debate filmmakers great join process
There is a great debate going on on where we are going in the post-9/11 world. This is part of the process of filmmakers saying, 'We would like to join that conversation'.
jobs journey skills
Acting is many things. Acting is playing lines, of course, but it's much more profound than that. Acting is truth-telling, and trying to find the truth in a human situation, which will be sketched out by a screenwriter with all the skill that a screenwriter can do; but in the end, that's just the map of the journey. The actor's job is to divine and embody the truth, and find it.
challenges fundamentals faces
That's one of the central challenges we face - how to stay true to events and compress the fundamentals.
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.
jobs actors divine
The actor's job is to divine and embody the truth, and find it.
firsts productions posts
You sort of can't talk about the post production unless you talk about what comes first.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.