The 213th Best Director of All-Time: Paul Greengrass

Greengrass.  There is shaky-cam cinema and then there is Paul Greengrass. His handheld camera visceral style is a brilliant example of auteur cinema working within the Hollywood blockbuster. He has a patented visual approach and a top 500 of all-time film (barely) and there just aren’t many of those left at slot #213 on my best director list here. He already has six archiveable films and counting too—a strength as well.

Best film: The Bourne Ultimatum

• The film’s narrative is slim- it is essentially Bourne protecting 3 people: Paddy Considine, Julia Stiles, and (with a twist)- Joan Allen- it’s a great example of style over substance- such a great exercise and no other films have the feel and style of a Greengrass film
• Notable for its handheld camerawork and purposefully shaky style
• European police sirens- when I hear them now I almost just think of Bourne movies
• Action sequences are made for Greengrass’s form- I’m not sure it would work in other genres
• Dazzling final shot and even that is interrupted with yet another Greengass montage of the presuming fallout

Dazzling final shot and even that is interrupted with yet another Greengass montage of the presuming fallout

• Mid-shot zooms purposefully unfocused
• Superb cast from Strathairn to Finney to Scott Glenn
• Won, and justifiably so, the Oscar for best editing
• Washed out flashbacks in film form
• Certainly reminds me of The Conversation and is a meditation on surveillance
• The waterloo train station set piece is a jaw-dropper and makes for one of the best single sequences of 2007
• I’m sure the ASL (average shot length) is really low
• Consistent shallow focus dialogue sequence where the background dominant talking party is shot crisply but the foreground receiver of the dialogue is in shallow focus

total archiveable films: 6

top 100 films:  0

top 500 films:  1 (The Bourne Ultimatum)

top 100 films of the decade:  1 (The Bourne Ultimatum)

most overrated:  Nothing here in the overrated category. Greengrass doesn’t have a film yet that lands on the overall TSPDT consensus top 2000—but does have four films on the TSPDT top 1000: Bloody Sunday, Bourne Supremacy, United 93 and Bourne Ultimatum

most underrated :  2007 is long enough in the rearview- Ultimatum should be tracking somewhere on the TSPDT 2000 climbing up. Captain Phillips needs to be there as well.

gem I want to spotlight :  Captain Phillips is already forgotten by too many critics. It is a perfect example of a fully realized cinematic style.

Captain Phillips is already forgotten by too many critics. It is a perfect example of a fully realized cinematic style.

stylistic innovations/traits:

• You know you have a great auteur on your hand when you can basically take my review of Ultimatum above and copy and paste the stylistic traits here: handheld camerawork, low ASL (average shot length), mid-shot edits into zooms, washed out photography, loud ambient noise, shallow focus frame, multiple cameras used at multiple angles always kinetic (feels like a Tony Scott Unstoppable a bit)
• A masterful mongatist—an editor in the lineage of Eisenstein where that film is built in the editing room (a political filmmaker as well)
• Moral stories in political real/docudrama subtext- The Battle of Algiers feels like an important text to understanding Greengrass

mise-en-scene isn’t a strength of Greengrass so take the frames here with a grain of salt- he’s an editor with handheld shaky-cam approach- it’s hard enough to find a still image in focus- haha – and that’s intentional

top 10

1. The Bourne Ultimatum
2. Captain Phillips
3. The Bourne Supremacy
4. Bloody Sunday
5. United 93
6. Green Zone

By year and grades

*MP is Masterpiece- top 1-3 quality of the year film

MS is Must-see- top 5-6 quality of the year film

HR is Highly Recommend- top 10 quality of the year film

R is Recommend- outside the top 10 of the year quality film but still in the archives