INT: Paul Greengrass

Part of the reason THE BOURNE IDENTITY was such a surprise hit was the perseverance of director Doug Liman. Despite delays, costly re-shoots and rumors of spats with the studio, Liman was able to craft a unique, intelligent spy thriller that made actor Matt Damon an unlikely action star. When Liman had to step aside due to his MR. AND MRS. SMITH commitments, British filmmaker Paul Greengrass jumped in and took the reigns of the film’s sequel, THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. A veteran of the documentary genre, Greengrass stayed true to the first film's gritty feel and cinema verite style, using very little CGI and tons of hand-held camera. In fact, there was so much hand-held camerawork that at the end of our press screening one of the attendees actually vomited, very loudly, after the climactic car chase. If you’ve got a weak stomach, you might want to bring some Dramamine with you when you go see this one.

Paul Greengrass stopped by the Four Seasons last week to talk to the press about his experience stepping into the world of mainstream film and making THE BOURNE SUPREMACY.

PAUL GREENGRASS

Why did you decide to shoot the film in the style that you did and what is your reaction to the news that a little girl actually threw up during the press screening?

(Laughs) Is that true?

Yes.

Well, I have to make a confession: the problem was that Universal Studios have been having a few financial problems and we couldn’t afford any grips or dollies.  No, that’s not true.  I think that the first film was a very good film, and what was good about it was that it mixed the two elements together.  It was a marriage of a kind of European, indie – there was some handheld and some not – style with a kind of mainstream Hollywood thing.  The joining of those two elements is what gave the film its freshness and originality and energy.  And I think that when it came to making the second, you wanted to keep those two elements but maybe purify them out a little more and join them together again in the hope that you get some more of that same energy.  So I decided to strip down and make it even more visceral, even more intense in style.

You know, more hand-held.  The thing a bout a hand-held camera is that it’s not a knowing camera.  It doesn’t know what’s going to happen.  That’s what it says. If you’ve locked a camera down on a dolly or you do a tracking shot and the actor’s walking this way and you come with it, it’s a knowing camera.  The camera knows what’s going to happen because it’s been placed there and it’s obviously anticipating the action.  But if you’re here with a hand-held camera, automatically your audience has the feeling of being eye-level with the action, with the character.  And the idea of the film is that you take that character Bourne that you know from the first film.  He’s a tremendously exciting, interesting, complex character, although you know very little about him, and propel him through this thing.  But propel him eye-level, you know?

Did you have any apprehension about this being your first big, mainstream movie?

No, not particularly.  I mean, it was exciting, like getting a very big train set for Christmas, you know?  I’ve made plenty of films, so the process is the same whether it’s a big film or a small film, in the end it’s about trying to distil an energy in front of the camera and record it.  To me, this was a bit like...if you make what I’ve tended to make, which is small, “European” films, for want of a better word, it’s a bit like flying a Tigermoth: you feel every bump and every air pocket and you’re very aware that you’re flying by the seat of your pants.  This felt like getting into the cockpit of a 747.  I mean, there’s every single resource and system that you could want.  It was like being in a large, large luxury car.  But what I tried to was fly it as if it was a Tigermoth, you know?  Make it loop the loop, go around and duck and dive.  And that was really interesting and good fun.  Hopefully, it worked out well.

We heard there were also some re-shoots one this film. Can you tell us what scenes you chose to re-shoot?

Well, what your doing is honing the film.  I think that’s one of the things that I haven’t encountered before, because I haven’t had the money in the budget to do that.  It means that you can hone a film in that way.  You can make it deliver what you want it to deliver.  And if you get to a point – as you do in any story – this is a film (where) you trying to distill the story into 105 minutes or whatever.  You can find there’s a place where, (you say) “Actually, what we’re saying there, we could say more easily if we did this.”  And you go out and re-shoot it.  It’s not the process that some people think; it’s not a cynical process at all.  It’s no different to re-writing your copy.  You write a draft and then you go, “Oh, actually, I can deliver that last paragraph better if I say this,” and then you revise it.  And then you press the button to send it. And that’s the process that you go through in post-production.  It’s very important, particularly at ends of films.

You re-shot the ending?

Twice, yeah.  But always trying to do the same thing, interestingly.  All the time, what’s interesting is that you find that you’re trying to say the same thing.  It’s like another take.  It’s like, “Let’s do another take.  We can get this better.”  That’s what it’s like.  And then, magically – I mean, you guys will be the judge – but I think we got the right one.  We were always trying to find “that thing”, and we tried to do it various ways, and then I think we found the one.  I think it’s about the fact that endings distill what the whole film is about.  It’s gotta distill it in lot’s of ways.  It’s gotta distill it tonally, it’s gotta appear to be the right tone.  It’s gotta resolve the story and the characters.  And it’s got to leave you with the feeling that the character goes on, the character is endlessly destined to...like The Fugitive TV series – he’s a character who will have these great adventures, playing out the legacy of his past and his hopes for the future, but he will always be alone and always destined to move on to the next one.  And so somehow you’ve got to create an end that does all those things.  And that’s quite tricky.  And also that it seems to kind of bring you up a little bit at the end.  You remember that it’s been exciting and visceral. 

How plausible do you think the events in the Bourne stories are?

I think the world of it is plausible.  I don’t think exactly that would be plausible, but something a bit like that would be.  It was one of the things that we talked and debated a lot through the making of the film.  It was always very important to me, that our story be rooted in a contemporary world, one that we understood, rather than something preposterous that would be unbelievable. And that’s quite hard to do.

What was it like working with Matt Damon? Did he help you integrate into the whole mainstream film franchise thing?

Well, we had a blast.  I think that was the number one thing.  It was a fantastically – I can’t speak for him, I can only speak for myself – it was a fantastically rich, interesting, exciting, creative partnership.  I think the relationship between a director and the leading actor, whether it’s male or female, is a tremendously important relationship because together you in a sense see the scope of the whole film, because the central character, the arc of that journey is what is going to deliver your story.  There are other characters, but essentially that relationship is what films stand or fall on.

When they first asked me if I was interested in doing the film, I went to see him in Prague and we had dinner and I just felt – I think we both felt – that we saw absolutely, in broad concepts, the same.  You know, what we wanted to achieve out of the film, the feel of it, what we wanted it to say, the balance between the elements that we’re gonna challenge and the elements that were gonna be the action/adventure, suspense elements.  Because I think a film like this is what makes the Bourne franchise interesting.  It delivers a fantastic ride, a first-class piece of entertainment, but I think it also delivers a compelling character, a character played with emotional realism and a kind of contemporary take.  And you put those three elements together and that’s what makes the Bourne films special.  And I think he and I tried to take that and test that character more profoundly than they’ve been tested before.

Were there any scenes that you had together that you had to cut? Will there be a director’s cut on the DVD?

Truly, absolutely not.  This is the director’s cut, actually.  What I mean is, it’s the product purely of my hand.  One of the most interesting things from my point of view, coming from the background that I come from, was to make this film with a core group of people.  You know – Frank (Marshall), Matt (Damon) and the writers.  Somehow, sort of collectively we got there.  And that was an interesting process to me.  And fun.  And creatively stimulating, the magical way that we would sort of grope for answers – at various stages, at the beginning of script development and all the way through – because you’ve got different points of view and you’re trying to find your way through.  And I think it’s about having a group of people who see the character the same way, see the world the same way, have core ideas and sensibilities in common that you’re trying to deliver.  There was something incredibly exciting about the way that you would get to the right piece rock or the right foothold to go to the next step, and ultimately to the finished film, which I think we think is great.

What are you working on next?

Oh God knows. (Laughs) Having a holiday. No, I can’t see beyond that really. I’ve been absolutely...you get consumed with these films, you know? I’m Bourned-out. (Laughs)

Questions? Comments? Manifestos? Send them to me at thomas@joblo.com.

Source: JoBlo.com