Paul Greengrass: A Retrospective

Editor’s Notes: Captain Phillips opens wide this Friday, October 11th.

With only eight feature films on his record, it’s safe to say the jury is still out on the career of Paul Greengrass.  Don’t get me wrong, promise has been shown, and Greengrass has developed a signature style, one that many filmmakers have borrowed from and tried to recreate.  That is the sign of, if anything, an influential director.  Greengrass’s films don’t show a great deal of range, and at this point he could be easily categorized as an action auteur.  His films are action films at their most base level, but they are heady action films where explosions and gunfights are certain to come with emotional ties.  Aside from perfecting a major franchise, the work of Greengrass has surrounded harrowing real-life narratives.  And speaking of these true stories, whatever his career holds going forward, I believe Paul Greengrass has already passed his toughest challenge as a filmmaker.

Aside from perfecting a major franchise, the work of Greengrass has surrounded harrowing real-life narratives.  And speaking of these true stories, whatever his career holds going forward, I believe Paul Greengrass has already passed his toughest challenge as a filmmaker.

Paul Greengrass began his directing career like so many filmmakers tend to do; with pure determination and his own Super 8 camera.   His youth was spent making creature features until his studies took him to Cambridge and the Granada Television School.  Greengrass doggedly pursued hard-hitting documentary subjects for his early career before breaking into television and film.  His docudrama, The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, was the first picture to get him wider recognition, and he parlayed that success into Bloody Sunday, a dramatic telling of the unrest in Northern Ireland.  It wasn’t long after Bloody Sunday that Greengrass would nab his breakthrough film, taking over a franchise that started off solid but wanted to take the filmmaking aspects in a different direction.

Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity was a fantastic action adventure, based on the Robert Ludlum spy novels and starring Matt Damon in a role that would define his career.  The executive decision to bring in Greengrass to film the first sequel, The Bourne Supremacy, was a risky switch given the success of the original.  But the risk was paid off in spades as Greengrass signed every frame of the picture with his signature style.  A reduction of his technique might be to call it a “shaky cam” approach, but Greengrass’ frenetic, fast-twitch camera was beyond such a simple explanation.  It immerses the viewer in the story, ties them to the hip of the star as, in this cas, Jason Bourne looks to exact revenge on those who had done him wrong.  The result of Greengrass and the Bourne franchise almost immediately changed the tone of the franchise, gave it a darker lens, and the wild success of this sequel brought Greengrass and Damon back for The Bourne Ultimatum.  The third film is, for my money, the best in the series.

A reduction of his technique might be to call it a “shaky cam” approach, but Greengrass’ frenetic, fast-twitch camera was beyond such a simple explanation.

But let’s go back a year before The Bourne Ultimatum, to Greengrass’s follow up project to Supremacy.  The film was United 93, and it told the story of the flight which was hijacked on 9/11, only to be overtaken by courageous passengers before plummeting to the Pennsylvania earth.  This was a risky film, just five years after 9/11.  Some felt it was too soon for a dramatization, but Greengrass paid great respect to those on board the doomed flight.  The film is a stomach-churning, riveting bit of storytelling.  There are, appropriately, no marquee names in the cast to keep every passenger top of mind.  United 93 is a tough film to watch in the end, but the events leading up to that fateful crash are captivating, and they fit in harmony with the Greengrass style.

The one noticeable misstep in this early stage of Greengrass as a name director has to be Green Zone, a military action film that came and went without much fanfare.  Reviews were middling, and the film never emotionally connects the way his other films are able to do.  As we sit now, watching the evolution of Paul Grengrass, we may be on the cusp of his finest film to date.  Captain Phillips is another harrowing true-life tale, this time starring Tom Hanks as a captive freighter captain fighting off Somali pirates.  Early returns are glowing, some even calling this the best work in Tom Hanks career.  Think about that.  This could be the film that pushes Paul Greengrass to the next level.  Maybe he will turn this success into more diverse roles, but if he did decide to stick with dramatic, pathos-drive action pictures, I don’t think anyone should complain.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

Larry Taylor

Staff Film Critic

Ever since I was a child I have had an obscene obsession with film. After seeing Superman II as a five-year old, I have made it my mission to absorb as many films in as many genres from as many moments in time as I can. And over the years, there are films which have continued to shape my cinematic consciousness. I love discussing film, and I hope you enjoy discussing it along with me. You can read my work on themoviesnob.net as well.

Latest posts by Larry Taylor (see all)

• Universal Monster Classic: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - NP Approved - October 15, 2013
• Universal Monster Classic: The Invisible Man (1933) - October 10, 2013
• Paul Greengrass: A Retrospective - October 10, 2013