THE GREENGRASS PAPERS

Interviews with and analyses of the films of Paul Greengrass.

When 23-year-old Greengrass began his apprenticeship at the Granada TV program World in Action in England in 1978, a program controller gave him a piece of advice: “Don’t forget your job is to make trouble.” Shone, the author of previous cinema books about Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan, documents the extent to which Greengrass heeded that advice. In this excellent work, a combination of critique and revealing interviews with the director, the author shows how World in Action sent him to various hot spots around the world and gave him important assignments. He covered hunger strikes at Maze high-security prison near Belfast, and an inquiry into Russian spies penetrating Britain’s security and intelligence departments led to his controversial book Spycatcher, “a prodigious feat of forensic research” that brought him to Hollywood’s attention. First, he directed several more documentaries and began developing his signature technique of the “unknowing camera,” a “rough, syncopated layering of zooms, reframings and racked focus that jolts the camera out of its traditional pose of omniscience and forces it to become a player in what it witnesses.” He has since used this technique in his Hollywood films, including United 93, Captain Phillips, and his trio of films about foreign service officer Jason Bourne. Shone does a nice job summarizing all of these works and dramatizing the challenges Greengrass faced, from disagreements with scriptwriters to his admission that he lost sight of his goals when shooting Green Zone, his 2010 film about Iraq. The book also contains amusing behind-the-scenes stories. For example, after the actor hired to play air traffic control manager Ben Sliney in United 93 didn’t work out, Greengrass asked Sliney himself to take the role. Sliney’s reply: “I just want to say thanks for making me second choice to play myself.”

A well-informed peek into the career of a celebrated director.