Paul Greengrass - Film Director HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. I am Stephen Sackur. What do we want from the

movies? Judging from global box office returns, the answer is

escapism, super heroes and awesome special effects. That is not how my

guest today became and A-list director. Paul Greengrass makes

torte films that are not always easy to watch. His biggest hits worthy --

worthy Bourne movies. How does he juggle truth, art and

entertainment? Paul Greengrass, welcome to

HARDtalk. Thank you for having me. Let's start with escapism. There is

a thought that that is what people go to the movies for. But it is not

what you offer your audiences. You invite them to dig deep into the

events and situations that seem they might rather avoid. Well, listen.

The movie experience is lots of things wrapped up in one.

Fundamentally, going to the movies is an entertainment choice. It is

pointless to pretend it isn't. But within that, I still think you can

make films, and they always have been made, incidentally, in any

given year there are films that have engaged with real issues and the

real world. The point is, for a healthy movie industry, you need to

have good entertainment, interesting films, and personal films. Films

about the world beyond. You need a mixed portfolio. You wouldn't deny

that you are the sort of hard end of it. I don't mean hard in any way

other than... It is difficult to sit in some of your movies and not feel

uncomfortable. Anguished. Well, some of those films have dealt with

difficult subjects. Personally, I don't like to make miserable films.

I would hope that is not the case. What I have tried to do is make

films that are popular. The Bourne movies were popcorn movies, Saturday

night entertainment. Given where I come from... I come from a British

current affairs documentary background. Inevitably, where you

come from informs you will work. The Bourne movies, I try to group them

into the real world. But they were escapism. I hope escapism with

quality. The other movies are, in a way, extensions of the work I did in

current affairs. They are about real events. You try to depict them as

authentically as you can. But of course you have to make compromises

and turn corners. Movies are not journalism. They are not history.

But they do have a responsibility, I think, to be truthful. I do believe

they can contain truth. Very important issues there. Definitely.

At the heart of it, I would say. This is the important point. They

can all learn their place in mainstream movie experiences.

Audiences can come and see the Bourne movie and also see a film

like United 93 or Captain Phillips. It is all part of the cinematic

experience. Let's talk about the new release, Captain Phillips. This is a

movie that is set in the world of Somali pirates. It tells the story

of one US container ship which is hijacked by pirates. To what extent

were you very aware of the need not to characterise this as a good guy

entering the evildoers' lair. Yes, I was aware of that. But you have also

got to be aware of creating moral equivalence. In other words, you

have to paint a picture of these events that authentic, that conveys

a truthful picture of, for instance, four young men from Somalia who go

out with AK-47s and attacked a ship. It is based on the real story of an

American ship captain who was taken by pirates. But of course his

account of the affair is, by definition, all about his

perspective. What you have done is take his story at them actually film

it from two different perspectives, that of him and his crew, but then

also the perspective that begins in Somalia. It is the process. It is

the same in 93, the same in Bloody Sunday, and the same in my work in

television. In other words, you start with a story, a chain of

events, narrative, whatever it is, and in it are two things. Firstly,

there are dramatic events with compelling characters. Also, there

is something about those events, to my mind, that seems to offer

meanings. Those meanings can often be contradictory and elusive. The

process of film-making is to tell the story as simply as you can and

with regard, true regard, for the facts, in order to explore what

those meanings are. You don't start with the meanings. They emerge out

of the telling of the story. Can I stop you now to have a bit of the

story before our eyes. Let's look at a short clip from Captain Phillips,

where we see use use those dual perspectives. Film from the

freighter and also from the point of the Somali pirates.

This is your final warning! Stop the ship!

So, there we have a lot of action. Tempting, maybe, to see that as

another genre thriller. But as the movie develops, it is incredibly

intense. It is a character analysis of two men, the ship's captain,

played by Tom Hanks, and the Somali pirate leader, an actor we have been

introduced to. For you, is that more important, the up close, intense

analysis of those characters? You have got to get the method clear.

You start, in this case, with Richard Phillips are part of the

story. His book is an account of his first person story with his wife.

When I started make the film, I make a decision not to tell the wife's

story. I wanted the story on the ocean. Then you take up a process of

research, as you would on any story. As you did as a journalist.

Definitely. But it is not journalism. But you have got to have

that initial journalistic fact -based process. You need to know

what has really happened. You are not just telling the story from one

person's point of view. You are going to make a film out of it. They

movie is different. But if you are going to make a movie ace on real

events, you have to start with the real events. Otherwise you have got

no basis for making judgements. How do you reflect all of the multiple

points of view? That is the process. I understand that. You

dramatise, but you have to use your imagination, to imagine yourself

into the life and the values of Muse, the Somali pirate captain. In

doing that, you sort of humanised him, in a way. I would hope I

humanised him. But maybe you invite simply for him. The real captain of

this, who has been talking about the movie, says he wants the world to

understand, and these are his words, that this was a guy, Muse, the

fictional version of the bloke, this was a guy who told me he had

kidnapped and murdered another captain. He told me I was going to

die in Somalia. Let's be clear, he is just a thug who doesn't care

about other people. And the point is what? All of that is reflected in

the film. What I'm talking about is this. You have got to avoid two

things. You have got to avoid sympathising or creating moral

equivalence, and you have got to avoid, in drama, demonising. Those

are the two things you want to avoid. What you have got to get to

is observing authenticity. In other words, you need a portrait of that

young man that is truthful. In other words, that means a portrait of a

criminal, because that is what they are. A ruthless criminal in gait

environs and kidnap, all of which is amply reflected in this film. But

also, understand what has given rise to those choices. In other words,

the hopelessness and the hotchpotch of things that growing up in Somalia

at that time would give you. In the end, you have something that is in

the middle. It is not demonising and not sympathising. It is just

truthful. In terms of what you are talking about with Richard Phillips,

Richard Phillips repeatedly, and I was there when he saw the film, what

he says is, you absolute nailed the portrait of those pirates. So let's

be clear about that. That is his view. He thought that we absolutely

nailed what they were like. Do your see yourself as a political

film-maker? I don't, no. You have a sense that you have a scepticism

about the powers that be, whether it be global capitalism, which is sort

of a theme that runs under Captain Phillips, as a movie. You allude to

the plight of the Somalis who can't face because of overfishing. Captain

Phillips has to go through with his journey because of immense

capitalist pressures on him. In other movies, you have looked at the

way state power is exercised. There is a political scepticism to your

film-making. I wouldn't put it like that, obviously. I think I have got

a strong point of view, that is for sure. And so I should. Anybody who

wants to make films need to have a strong point of view. You have to

make your film as the product of your honest and clear point of view.

Is that why you left documentaries? In the end, you have the facts and

that is what you are presenting to the best of your ability. In film,

you can, you have license, to manipulate and you have list -- life

is to weave your message in. I don't agree with that. I think that is

nonsense. I left documentaries because I had done them for ten

years and I had always wanted to make films. That was my dream and

that is what I did. I wanted to write and direct and make films. But

the principles are the same. Not entirely. They are, because you are

suggesting that if you move from documentaries, where the values are

good, and in movies you can and it believe the truth. I don't accept

that. I think there is truth you can get at journalistically. There is

truth you can get that through the process of history. There is also

truth that can be got at through movies, and that truth is truth of

behaviour. It is complex. I'm not saying that truth is better or

worse. They are different tools at getting at authenticity. You are

suggesting that somewhere, movie-making is, by its nature, less

truthful. I don't accept that. I don't think you could look at 100

years of film-making and suggest that. In United 93, an intense

portrait of what happened on that particular flight as it was taken by

the hijackers on 9/11 and the passengers decided to fight back...

We know what happened in the end. You have used a huge amount of

research to recreate what you believe happened on board. But you

have made some things up. There is a moment where the German passenger on

board is seen to argue with the Americans on board about the wisdom

of taking on the hijackers. He says, no, we shouldn't do it. We

should negotiate. Take it easy. You made that up. You had no way of

knowing. Here is the process of the film. It goes to how you get at

truth. You can know a lot that there are things about certain events that

you cannot know. I agree with you about that. But what acting can do,

the critical thing here, what the actor can do and accompanying actors

can do is to take you very close to what it must have been like. You

have to set a process that enables actors' instincts to be explored. In

that particular case, and what it means is each actor has to have the

freedom to interpret that space as they see fit, within what can be

known. We could know a lot but certain things we could not know.

What that actor felt, he was a German actor, he felt very strongly

that a German citizen would be guided by the German experiences of

hijacks, which were that they reached successful conclusions and

that they did land. But that is a huge arrogance to taking upon

yourself the right to portray a real person. I think this guy was called

Christian Adams. He was on the plane and his family were still alive. #

still alive. I do not know if they liked or disliked the portrayal of

him. The fact is, there is a huge arrogance in deciding to portray

that person. I do not agree at all. You are trying to get to the truth

of what that must have felt like and what meanings it would have had. I

would defy anybody to look at that film and think it does not present

an authentic portrait of what that must have been like. You're not

telling me it is likely that nobody on that aeroplane would have had at

the front of their mind, despite what they were being told, that this

might end happily if we could just land. It is not just your film. Lots

of fictional recreations of real-life events... The arrogance I

think is the journalistic arrogance which says we are the only tool

which can get at truth. That I do not agree with. If I may say, it is

one of the problems that has led journalism, particularly at the

BBC, into problems. You do not accept that there are other tools

getting at the truth which is just as important. That does not say

these methods, and you are right to interrogate me, and that is right.

We are talking about real people and real lives and consequences. A final

thought on this. Dennis Bingham has written book called Whose Lives Are

They Anyway? It looks at the way by optics work. He says that the --

within the public memory is that sometimes the film perception of a

person or event forever supplants the real person. Would you accept

that? It is a danger. It is a danger, of course. It is a reality.

Movies have a powerful effect. But let us go back to United 93. You do

not think that I made that film without speaking to each and every

family, because I did. Each and every family signed a release

including that to kill a family. They all saw the film as well. If

what you were saying was true, would you not have thought that all those

families would have objected? On the contrary, I think they look at that

film, and by the way, those families come from very different backgrounds

and nationalities and different political views, I think they all

see that film, I would hope and that is minder standing from their

reaction, as a testament to what happened on that plane. So far from

its planting in a negative way, it gives people a powerful sense of

what is fundamentally important, which is that 40 men and women in a

very narrow space of time, some 20 minutes or so, how to process the

post-911 world, whilst we were all sitting there thinking, what is this

event about, they knew they had to process it and overcome the

inevitable feeling of, we must not do anything because it will be OK.

They had to process beyond that to the point of saying, no, this will

not be OK. And then act. That is the picture that film portrays. A final

point about that film. It is searingly realistic and part of the

way it works is that you deliberately chose to use non-stars

as actors. Some parts played well by the real people themselves, involved

on that day. No stars whatsoever. Here you have made Captain Phillips,

again about real events, tense and realistic. Using actors. Yes, using

one of Hollywood's biggest stars, Tom Hanks. After United 93 you

said, if passengers were betrayed by movie stars, you would not feel

their ordinariness. If you do not understand the ordinariness, you

cannot understand their courage. Why does not -- why does that not apply

to Captain Phillips? Because the film is called Captain Phillips.

Because you needed the big finance and studio behind it and it was a

difficult pitch to sell? It was quite the reverse. He was already

involved in the project. When you look at Tom Hanks, you think one of

Hollywood's biggest A-listers. What I take from that film, I think that

what they will find in that film is a sublime and powerful piece of

screen acting. That is what I find out of it. Also, what is interesting

is that it is a sublime piece of acting by a great, great film actor

and an equally powerful performance by a young man who is just embarking

on his acting career. That is an interesting relationship and that is

what the film is about. The relationship between the two, which

is informed by the movie star and the first time actor. That is why I

did it that way. Before we end I want to lift your eyes to a wider

horizon and think about the movie-making business. You have been

in it for a long time. How difficult is it to win the financing, the

backing, to get the marketing guys on board and to get all the

paraphernalia on your side and these days still stay very loyal to your

own values and principles and make what you want to make? It is always

more possible than you would think. I have been very blessed. I was

blessed when I worked in television here, as I could do what I wanted.

It is the same there. Clearly, it is a difficult environment. And a money

driven environment. It is commercial cinema. You have made some widely

acclaimed movies but you are known best for the two movies within the

Bourne franchise. When they made the fourth Bourne movie, you did not

direct it. Did you want to step away from the franchise industry? Yes,

they did ask me and I thought I had taken it as far as I could. Were you

bored with it? No, on the contrary. I love the character but there is a

limit to how many times you can operate within one franchise. It is

one character, the same character. I had made two films. There are only

so many movies you can make in a lifetime. If there was to be a

Bourne 5, would you do it? No, I would not do it. Universal and I

have had long discussions. It has been going on for three or four

years now. I wish them well and I'm so glad I did the two films I did.

I'm very proud of them. We will end there. Paul Greengrass, thank you

very much indeed for being on HARDtalk.