Movie Talk with Paul Greengrass
Description
British film director Paul Greengrass discusses his film Captain Phillips 2013 starring Tom Hanks. A film about a group of Somali pirates hijacking a container ship off the coast of Kenya. Greengrass details how he likes filming stories based on real-life events, in particular crime stories, saying 'films work best when they come from a place of passion'. He believes in bringing the audience onboard and making them feel involved in the story. He goes on to explain his interest in the 'collision of events and characters' exemplified by the particular the struggle between Hanks and the pirate Captain played by new-comer Barkhad Abdi. The film was set on the open seas, in a major shipping lane which really drove the film along - creating great suspense. Greengrass enjoyed working with Hanks whom he describes as 'a brilliant actor with the ability to go to profound places. Perfect for the part'. Bloody Sunday 2002 is a film shot like a documentary. Set in Derry, Northern Ireland it is centred around a peaceful protest march that led to slaughter. Greengrass discusses there being no common narrative, with opinions, recollections and experiences being dependent on where you were from and where you were at the time. Greengrass explains that he set out to try and unite the audience on the subject through a shared narrative'. Greengrass goes on to talk about his early career working for Granada Television, making low budget TV and films, mostly about real life gritty subjects, a period during which he enjoyed the complete creative control he was given. Greengrass would inevitably utilise his experience and knowledge to further his career in Hollywood, successfully employing his documentary style camera work and his ability to tell 'the story'. Matt Damon's character in the Bourne trilogy was an anti-hero, a renegade secret agent. Greengrass discusses the impact 9/11 had on the film industry, offering that in his view cinema reflects the world at any given time, and his films in particular. United 93 2006 was a film about the passenger plane that crashed into the world Trade Centre, Greengrass feels this was a very important film to make. The next film discussed is Green Zone 2010, another film in the shadow of 9/11 this time about a Soldier in the Iraq War starring Matt Damon. Greengrass closes by returning to the film Captain Phillips - the first of his films that dramatises a 'new world problem'. That of the threat of economic forces, alongside the intense drama between these two culturally estranged captains.