Paul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass is an acclaimed British director and screenwriter, recognized for his compelling storytelling and innovative filmmaking techniques. Born on August 13, 1955, in Cheam, Surrey, England, Greengrass developed an early interest in filmmaking during his time at Sevenoaks School and later pursued a degree at Queens' College, Cambridge. He began his career in television, working for Granada Television, where he directed documentaries, some of which addressed significant social and political issues.
Greengrass gained international prominence with the film *Bloody Sunday* (2002), which depicts the tragic events of the 1972 protest in Northern Ireland. This success opened doors for him in Hollywood, leading to the direction of *The Bourne Supremacy* (2004) and its sequels, which showcased his signature documentary-style filmmaking. He also directed critically acclaimed films such as *United 93* (2006), *Captain Phillips* (2013), and *News of the World* (2020), the latter starring Tom Hanks.
Known for his ability to dramatize real events and create emotional resonance through gritty realism, Greengrass has received numerous accolades, including BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. He is also involved in the filmmaking community as a former president of Directors UK. Greengrass resides in England with his wife and five children and is a passionate supporter of the Crystal Palace soccer club.
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Subject Terms
Paul Greengrass
Director
- Born: August 13, 1955
- Place of Birth: Cheam, Surrey, England
Contribution: Paul Greengrass is an award-winning director and screenwriter best known for the films Bloody Sunday (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), United 93 (2006), Captain Phillips (2013), Jason Bourne (2016), and News of the World (2020).
Background
Paul Greengrass was born on August 13, 1955, in Cheam, Surrey, England, a suburban village south of London. His father was a merchant seaman and river pilot, and his mother was a schoolteacher. His brother, Mark, is a noted historian and professor who specializes in early modern French history.
Greengrass attended Sevenoaks School in Kent for his secondary education, where he developed his interest in filmmaking. He started making short horror films using a borrowed Super-8 camera, dolls, dummies, and other props he found in the art room.
After secondary school, Greengrass moved on to Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he earned a degree in 1974. Following his graduation, he began working for Granada Television, now ITV Granada, in the Manchester area of England.
Career
Greengrass worked at Granada Television for eleven years, eventually becoming director of current affairs for the documentary television series World in Action (1963–98). This job took him all around the world in search of interesting stories.
Greengrass coauthored the controversial book Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987) with Peter Wright, a former British Military Intelligence, Section 5 (MI5) assistant director. The book tells the story of Wright’s efforts to locate a Russian spy who had infiltrated the British intelligence service. The book was initially banned in the United Kingdom, and its publication was delayed.
In 1989, Greengrass directed his first feature film, Resurrected, a drama set during the Falklands War that focuses on an abandoned soldier. At that year’s Berlin International Film Festival, it was nominated for the Golden Bear, the highest award given at the festival, and won two jury awards.
After Resurrected, Greengrass directed several television films that dealt with social and political issues. These films include The One That Got Away (1996), which looks at a failed Gulf War mission; The Fix (1997), about the British soccer betting scandal of 1964; and The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (1999), about a young, black British man who was murdered at a bus station in 1993.
Greengrass returned to theatrical film with The Theory of Flight (1998), the story of a romance between a suicidal man and a woman with a neurological disease, which starred Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter. The film was highly acclaimed and won the Crystal Star award for best European feature at the 1999 Brussels International Film Festival.
His next film, Bloody Sunday (2002), was an international hit. The film, presented in a documentary style, depicts the January 30, 1972, protest in Derry, Northern Ireland, in which British soldiers killed twenty-six Irish anti-internment protestors. Greengrass became interested in the conflicts of Northern Ireland while working on World in Action. In 2002, Bloody Sunday took home an Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Bloody Sunday brought Greengrass to the attention of the world as an innovative director on the rise. The film also established his trademark documentary style, which utilizes handheld cameras. The success of the film landed Greengrass the job of directing The Bourne Supremacy (2004), the sequel to the 2002 hit thriller The Bourne Identity.
The film, about a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) assassin suffering from amnesia, was Greengrass’s first mainstream film and his first for an American market, and it was a massive hit both financially and critically. Critics applauded his use of handheld cameras, stating that it gave the action film a gritty feel. Greengrass went on to direct the next Bourne film, The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), which became the most financially successful of the series and earned him a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) nomination for best director.
Greengrass returned to his documentary-style drama background with the film United 93 (2006). The film focuses on the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It received nearly unanimous acclaim, with critics again praising Greengrass’s use of handheld cameras. For the film, Greengrass won a BAFTA Award for best direction and was nominated for an Academy Award for best director and a Writers Guild of America Award for best original screenplay.
Greengrass reunited with Bourne star Matt Damon for the 2010 war thriller Green Zone, in which Damon plays a US Army officer looking for weapons of mass destruction during the Iraq War. The film received mixed responses from critics and failed to make back its budget of $100 million.
Using a screenplay based on the 2010 book A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips (with Stephen Talty), Greengrass helmed the film Captain Phillips, which adapted Phillips's real-life experience being taken hostage by Somali pirates when he was the captain of a cargo ship. Tom Hanks played the role of Phillips. After returning to the world of Bourne for the sequel Jason Bourne in 2016, he served as writer, producer, and director for 22 July, a docudrama about the terrorist attacks that occurred in Norway on July 22, 2011.
Greengrass' next project was News of the World, an Oscar-nominated 2020 Western starring Tom Hanks that follows a Civil War veteran tasked with returning a lost girl raised by the Kiowa to her family
Impact
Greengrass used his experiences in documentary television to transition into feature films with great success. His specialization in dramatizing real-life events has won him high accolades and several awards. In 2008, he and several other British directors established the professional association Directors UK, for which Greengrass served as president until 2014.
Personal Life
Greengrass resides in England with his wife, Joanna; they have five children. He is an avid fan of the Crystal Palace soccer club.
Bibliography
Greengrass, Paul. “Getting Direct with Directors . . . No. 40: Paul Greengrass.” Interview by Rob Carnevale. BBC Film. BBC, May 2006. Web. 23 July 2013.
Longman, Jere. “Paul Greengrass’s Filming of Flight 93’s Story, Trying to Define Heroics.” New York Times. New York Times, 24 Apr. 2006. Web. 23 July 2013.
Moser, Joseph Paul. Irish Masculinity on Screen: The Pugilists and Peacemakers of John Ford, Jim Sheridan, and Paul Greengrass. Jefferson: McFarland, 2013. Print.
"Paul Greengrass." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0339030. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024.
Rose, Steve. “Paul Greengrass: The Betrayal behind Green Zone.” Rev. of Green Zone, dir. Paul Greengrass. Guardian 7 Mar. 2010, sec. G2: 10. Print.
Wright, Peter, and Paul Greengrass. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York: Viking, 1987. Print.