Paul Greengrass

Early life

Greengrass was born 13 August 1955 in Cheam, Surrey, England. His mother Joyce Greengrass was a teacher and his father Phillip Greengrass a river pilot and merchant seaman. His brother Mark Greengrass is an English historian.

Greengrass was educated at Westcourt Primary School, Gravesend Grammar School and Sevenoaks School; he attended Queens' College, Cambridge. He studied English literature at the same time as Roger Michell.

Career

Journalism

Greengrass first worked as a director in the 1980s, for the ITV current affairs programme World in Action. At the same time, he co-authored the infamous book Spycatcher (1987) with Peter Wright, a former assistant director of MI5. It contained enough sensitive information that the British government made an unsuccessful attempt to ban it. In the mid 80s, the book was banned due to revealing insights into how MI5 operated.

Film

Greengrass moved into drama, directing non-fiction, made-for-television films such as The One That Got Away, based on Chris Ryan's book about the experiences of the British Army's Special Air Service during the Gulf War and The Fix, based on the 1964 British betting scandal. His 1998 film The Theory of Flight starred Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter, who played a woman with motor neurone disease. The film dealt with the difficult issue of the sexuality of people with disabilities.

Greengrass directed The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (1999), an account of Stephen Lawrence, a Black British youth whose murder was not properly investigated by the Metropolitan Police. His mother's investigations resulted in accusations about institutional racism in the police. His next film, Bloody Sunday (2002), depicted the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre during the Troubles in an almost documentary style; it shared First Prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival with Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Bloody Sunday was inspired by Don Mullan's politically influential book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday (Wolfhound Press, 1997). A schoolboy witness of the events of Bloody Sunday, Mullan was co-producer and appeared as a figure in Bloody Sunday.

In 2004, Greengrass co-wrote the television film Omagh with Guy Hibbert. Based on the Omagh bombing of 1998, the film was a critical success, winning British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama. This was the first professional film that Greengrass had not directed; he was credited as a writer and producer. He had been working on The Bourne Supremacy. The film was directed by Pete Travis. It was the second film Greengrass had written about terrorism and mass killing in Ireland after Bloody Sunday.

Based on that film, Greengrass was hired to direct 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, a sequel to the 2002 film The Bourne Identity. The first film's director, Doug Liman, had left the project. The film starred Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, an amnesiac who realises he was once a top CIA assassin and is being pursued by his former employers. An unexpectedly major financial and critical success, it secured Greengrass's reputation and ability to get his smaller, more personal films made.

In 2006, Greengrass directed United 93, a film based on the 11 September 2001 hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93. The film received critical acclaim, particularly for Greengrass's quasi-documentary-style. After receiving many Best Director awards and nominations from critics' circles (including the Broadcast Film Critics Association), Greengrass won the BAFTA award for Best Director at the 60th British Academy Film Awards and received an Oscar nomination for Achievement in Directing at the 79th Academy Awards. For his role in writing the film, he earned the Writers Guild of America Award and a BAFTA nominations for Best Original Screenplay.

Greengrass then returned to the Bourne franchise with The Bourne Ultimatum. Released in 2007, Ultimatum was an even bigger success than the previous two films. Greengrass was nominated for BAFTA Best Director at the 61st British Academy Film Awards.

In 2007, he co-founded Directors UK, a professional association for British directors. He served as founding president until July 2014.

Greengrass's Green Zone stars Matt Damon as the head of a U.S. military team on an unsuccessful hunt for weapons of mass destruction in post-war Iraq. It was filmed in Spain and Morocco and released in 2010. The film was first announced as based on the bestselling, award-winning, non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Washington Posts Baghdad bureau chief. But the final film is a largely fictionalised action thriller only loosely inspired by events in the book.

Captain Phillips, Greengrass's film about the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009, was based on the book A Captain's Duty. It starred Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi and Faysal Ahmed. It was shot in 2012 in Massachusetts and Virginia in the United States, as well as Malta. It was released in 2013.

In September 2014, it was announced Greengrass would return to direct the fifth Jason Bourne film, Jason Bourne, with Damon starring again. The film was released on 29 July 2016.

In 2017, Greengrass began filming 22 July, a docudrama film following the 2011 Norway attacks perpetrated by Anders Behring Breivik and their aftermath, on location in Norway. The film was released on Netflix and in select theaters on 10 October 2018.

In February 2019, Greengrass signed on to direct the film adaptation of the Paulette Jiles novel News of the World for Fox 2000 Pictures, reuniting him with actor Tom Hanks. The film was eventually released in the United States by Universal Pictures on 25 December 2020 and released internationally by Netflix in 2021.

In May 2022, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct medieval action film The Hood, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and based on the story of the English Peasants' Revolt in 1381. On September 15, it was announced Greengrass would write and direct an adaptation of the Stephen King novel Fairy Tale after King, a fan of Greengrass's films, sold him the option to adapt the film; Greengrass will also produce alongside Gregory Goodman. In November 2023, it was announced that Greengrass would write and direct a film adaptation of the T. J. Newman novel Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 for Warner Bros. Pictures. In January 2024, it was announced Greengrass would direct the thriller The Lost Bus, written by Brad Ingelsby and based on the 2021 nonfiction book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson, about the 2018 California wildfires, for Apple Studios; Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera will star in the project.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the arts.

Criticism and praise of shaky cam style

A number of Greengrass films have faced criticism for the overuse of the shaky camera technique. The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum were described by film critic Roger Ebert as using both shaky cam and fast editing techniques. Ebert was not bothered by it yet many of his readers complained, with one calling it "Queasicam."

Film professors Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell described the technique's development over 80 years of cinema and noted that Greengrass used more than the usual shaky camera motion to make it intentionally jerky and bouncy, coupled with a very short average shot length and a decision to incompletely frame the action.

Vox wrote, "On first encounter, it looks and feels chaotic, haphazard, random. The secret — and the reason it succeeds — is that it’s not random in the slightest."

Screen Rant was more critical of the style, saying, "The prevalence of the shaky cam style in Hollywood after the Jason Bourne movies has diminished its impact, making it quite tiresome and redundant.

Personal life

Greengrass has said that he does not believe in God but has "great respect for the spiritual way". Greengrass is married to talent agent Joanna Kaye, with whom he has three children, and is the father of two more children from an earlier marriage.

He is a supporter of Crystal Palace Football Club.

Filmography

Film

Television

TV movies

Documentary series

Appearance as himself

• Five Came Back (2017)

Awards and nominations

References

References

1. Brown, Mark. (2007-01-26). "'He is fun and he is bright'". The Guardian.
2. "Television in 2005 {{!}} BAFTA Awards".
3. "Paul Greengrass - Biography".
4. (18 March 2016). "The 100 most powerful people in British culture: 41-60". [[The Daily Telegraph]].
5. (29 August 2017). "Paul Greengrass to receive BFI Fellowship at BFI London Film Festival Awards Ceremony".
6. (14 October 2017). "Harvey Weinstein's Shadow Hangs Over London Film Festival Awards". What's Worth Seeing.
7. Brown, Mick. (4 August 2007). "Straight shooting". The Daily Telegraph.
8. "Paul Greengrass: Greengrass was made an Honorary Fellow of Queens' College in 2008. Description".
9. Thorpe, Vanessa. (5 August 2007). "Hollywood's Favourite Brit". The Guardian.
10. (25 July 2014). "Paul Greengrass steps down as Directors UK President".
11. (16 June 2008). "Inside Story: In the right direction - the cream of Britain's television directing talent". [[The Independent]].
12. Garrett, Diane. (6 June 2007). "Damon, Greengrass re-teaming".
13. (15 September 2014). "Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass Returning for Bourne 5!". Coming Soon.net.
14. Eisenberg, Eric. (19 October 2015). "Matt Damon Will Be Jason Bourne Again, Here Are The Details".
15. (21 August 2017). "Netflix Lands Paul Greengrass Pic About Norwegian Terrorist Who Killed 77".
16. Lang, Brent. (6 February 2019). "Paul Greengrass Circling 'News of the World' With Tom Hanks (EXCLUSIVE)".
17. (11 November 2020). "Netflix Buys International Rights to Tom Hanks' 'News of the World'".
18. Fleming, Mike Jr.. (20 May 2022). "New Hot Cannes Package: Paul Greengrass Directing Benedict Cumberbatch In Peasant Farmer Revolt Drama 'The Hood'".
19. Fleming, Mike Jr.. (September 15, 2022). "Hot Package: Paul Greengrass To Adapt & Direct Stephen King's New Bestseller 'Fairy Tale'".
20. (28 November 2023). "Paul Greengrass to Direct Adaptation of T.J. Newman Novel 'Drowning' For Warner Bros.". Variety.
21. (January 26, 2024). "Apple in Talks to Land Thriller 'The Lost Bus' From Matthew McConaughey, Director Paul Greengrass". [[Penske Media Corporation]].
22. Davis, Clayton. (February 21, 2024). "America Ferrera to Star in Paul Greengrass' Wildfire Drama 'The Lost Bus' With Matthew McConaughey (EXCLUSIVE)".
23. {{London Gazette. (1 January 2022)
24. Ebert, Roger. (August 22, 2007). "The Shaky-Queasy-Utimatum".
25. (August 17, 2007). "Unsteadicam chronicles".
26. Suderman, Peter. (August 1, 2016). "Some people can't stand the Bourne franchise's shaky-cam style. Here's why it's important.".
27. Sharma, Dhruv. (September 3, 2023). "Jason Bourne Created A Problem Action Movies Still Haven't Recovered From 21 Years Later".
28. "Calling the Shots: No.40: Paul Greengrass". [[BBC]].
29. Mottram, James. (7 February 2021). "Paul Greengrass: 'What are we gonna do in our country? It's split down the middle'".
30. (7 December 2018). "Bill Nighy & Paul Greengrass Star on Ep.16 of the Official Palace Podcast". Crystal Palace F.C..