Just like Lou Ye's movie is full of hand-held shaking shots, Paul Greengrass also loved it.
This is true even with his new film adaptation of the novel [World News]. (Starring Tom Hanks)
However, the intentions of the two are completely different, and Lou Ye often uses shaky shots to express ambiguity and uneasiness, approaching the heart of the characters.
Greengrass uses this to distance the audience and the characters, give them the perspective of rational observation, and highlight the documentary color.
In addition, in the commercial blockbuster series ,he combines shaky shots with quick editing.
Keep the film at a high tempo all the time, with almost no sensational close-ups and close-up slow motions.
Since his film debut in 1998, adaptations of true events have been Greengrass's most important and important creative path.
01 From journalist to director
Paul Greengrass was born in 1955 to an ordinary British family, and his father liked to show him to museums and see performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Like many directors, there was one outstanding film that shook Greenras's young mind, and that was—
British director David Lane's [Dr. Zhivago].
As a teenager, he was interested in making movies.
After graduating from Cambridge University, he entered the television station, participating in and shooting a large number of documentary investigation programs.
While a journalist, Greengrass co-authored the book Spycatcher, a retired senior MI5 official at Britain's intelligence agency, Peter Wright.
Due to the amount of classified information contained, the British government tried unsuccessfully to prevent the book from being published.
Greengrass's interest in politics, reality, and work experience related to it later manifested itself in his films.
In 1989, Greengrass made his debut film [Resurrection from the Dead].
The protagonist of the story is a British soldier who remains on the island after the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina.
In 1999, he brought a real-life racist murder to the screen and wrote and directed the film [The Murder of Stephen Lawrence].
Exposing the racist position of the police when investigating the case.
The case took place in London, England in 1993.
Lawrence, 18, was verbally abused by a group of white youth while waiting for a bus stop with a friend;
The two sides fought, and Lawrence was stabbed to death with a knife;
The police arrested 5 suspects and 3 were indicted, but all were eventually acquitted;
In 2011, the Uk's Court of Appeal ruled to reiterate the case, and the two killers were eventually sentenced.
[Bloody Sunday] is the most important work of Greengrass's directorial career, and it is also written by him.
The story is a documentary restoration of the shooting of civilians in Northern Ireland in 1972.
The film won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, sharing the honor with Miyazaki's Spirited Away.
Greengrass became internationally famous.
Soon after, Universal Pictures hollywood extended an invitation to direct [Spy 2].
Since then, he has completed three of the series, and the second and third parts have not lost the first one in word-of-mouth and box office, which is a successful example of a sequel.
Originally, after the filming of [Spy 3], Greengrass and actor Matt Damon thought that the series was over, but Hollywood's rules were not to let go of every possibility of profit.
Universal Hopes to make [Spy Movies] into a series of agent films like 007.
So in 2012 [Spy 4: Bourne's Legacy] was introduced.
The screenwriter of the first three films, Tony Gilroy, was the director, and the protagonist of the story was also changed, and Bourne did not appear in the film.
Greengrass once joked that the fourth part was "superfluous Bourne."
However, after the failure of the fourth part to launch a new storyline, In [Spy 5], Greengrath and Matt Damon return.
Based on the good results of the first three films, the market response of the fifth part was good, but the repeated form failed to create another peak of word-of-mouth.
Between the three [spy films] films, Greengrass completed three films based on true events —
[Flight 93], [Captain Philippe], [Norway's 7.22 bombing shooting]
They are all known for their handheld shaking documentary style.
In addition to the previous "Bloody Sunday", Greenglass has developed a personal style of expression in terms of restoring the truth and highlighting personal positions.
In the drama film, he plays a calm bystander role with documentary shots.
Each of these four films has subtle differences in form and emphasis.
Showing the complexity of current affairs and values, and portraying the true feelings of the parties, it is Greengrass's most personal expression.
02 Shaking blood
Paul · Greengrass's journalistic experience is extended in his films.
Instead of manipulating the characters and plot like a traditional feature film director, he brings his journalistic identity into the film and reviews real events.
From the lens of a "journalist" rather than a director, the beginning and end of events (which in the film are stories) are documented.
This is the most prominent style of several films that Greengrass has been praised for.
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False records
[Blood Sunday] was Greengrass's first internationally famous film, winning the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival.
In a pseudo-documentary manner, it recreates the shooting of civilians participating in the parade in Northern Ireland by British paratroopers in 1972.
The director's position is clear, on the side of the victim.
He cuts into the event with the organizers of the parade as the protagonists, capturing the clashes between paratroopers, officers, police officers and the young people of the parade during this bloody event.
Ahead of the march, lawmaker Coop held a press conference announcing that a march was scheduled to be held on Sunday to protest the British government's illegal imprisonment of citizens.
At the same time, the military also held a press conference to clearly inform the public that the march was illegal.
The scenes of the two press conferences are edited in parallel, the face-to-face confrontation has not yet begun, and the atmosphere is already tense.
Most of the time, the camera follows the characters or squeezes into the crowd, keeping a distance from the characters, creating a sense of shaky scene and reducing the lyricism of the shot.
Coop feared that the nonviolent marches would turn violent, especially the young people who were too impulsive and clashed head-on with the British army.
So he lobbied around to persuade them to stay calm and restrain their emotions.
He got up as usual, met with reporters, arranged pre-parade affairs, and was busy but orderly.
On the other side, British troops deployed at local police stations to cut off the march.
The police and the British army disagreed.
They know a lot of people at the parade and know that something out of the ordinary is not going to happen in the parade.
However, the British army carried out the orders of its superiors and firmly disagreed with the march.
Northern Ireland was a long-standing divisive hazard for the Government of London, England, and the presence of the Independence Army made them particularly sensitive to the affairs of the region.
So the march launched by Kupp and civil rights organizations —
Protests against the system of detaining citizens without trial have alarmed the army.
In addition to the news review, the recovery event has passed,
The film does not add too many plot plots to portray the personality and situation of the characters,
It's just a matter of putting the camera around the actors and documenting their participation in the parade and the violent clashes.
The original route of the march was blocked by the British army and could not reach the demonstration site, so Kupu called on people to change the route of the parade and give a speech on the truck.
But the agitated young man was determined to follow the original route and throw stones at the army, and the incident reached a climax.
The film documents the actions of three groups of characters.
The first group was a procession led by Kupp, for whom the purpose of the nonviolent march had been achieved.
He was clearly opposed to the young men confronting the British, who were not far away;
The second group of figures were officers and police officers in the police station, and the British army was discussing how to further suppress measures.
They reported receiving information that the Independence Army had mixed in with the march and that someone might have brought a gun.
The police in charge of local policing are still trying to persuade the British to exercise restraint, just as Kupp is trying to persuade the marchers not to act violently;
The third group of figures, the British army and the crowd that had left the parade, were dominated by young people, many of whom were middle school students, and their relations were becoming increasingly strained.
In the confusion and anxiety, the British army fired the first bullet at the young marchers, and the situation was out of control in an instant, the gunfire continued, and the crowd fled in all directions.
The British killed the red-eyed generally, regardless of the situation, did not make judgments, and shot indiscriminately.
Greengrass's documentary footage gives the audience a certain amount of discernment to some extent.
The decisions and actions of the parties are observed in detail from an outsider's perspective, but this is not to say that the director did not highlight his position.
Through the two gentle characters of the policeman and Coop, as well as the plot of the British lying and losing control, the bloodshed was pointed at the British army.
One of the victims had just become a father and died on his way to the hospital.
The British dragged him out of the back seat of the car and planted false accusations on him.
Hospitals were packed with dead and wounded and their families, and the British refused to admit their mistake and fabricated reasons for firing.
Coop held another press conference to express pessimism about the prospects for peace in Ireland and said he would give his full support to the young people.
When the film was released, a second investigation into the incident had not yet been completed.
At the first trial, the British soldiers who fired the shots were acquitted.
Greengrass's pseudo-documentary "records" the entire event from the standpoint of the British military's illegal behavior, most of which is based on historical data and is not fictional.
True observation
In [Norway's 7/22 bombing shooting], Greengrass still filmed the bloody massacre from the perspective of a recorder.
He still pays little attention to dramatic narrative and editing, according to the timeline of the event, retracing the experiences of the parties, intercepting the characters and topics that best reflect the focus of the event.
Extreme right-wing youth Anders Bellin Breivik, wearing a gas mask, is making bombs for terrorist attacks;
Excited teenagers arrive on The Island by boat to kick off their Youth Leaders Summer Camp.
No one knew that danger was approaching them.
Breivik tested a gun at home, then drove away from the forest cabin with a bomb and a gun and returned to his home in the city;
The President ends his work and leaves the official residence;
At night, the island of Ute is filled with the laughter of the bonfire.
The next day, Breivik first blew up an explosion at the government headquarters office building in the heart of The Norwegian capital, Oslo, killing eight people.
The city was put on guard, traffic was restricted, and the public was notified by radio to stay at home.
Disguised as a policeman, Breivik landed on The Island and went on a killing spree.
All this happened under his calm and sober consciousness.
He orchestrated the terrorist attack against the government and summer camp activities.
The camps are run by the ruling Labour Party, many of the campers' parents work in government departments, and the Prime Minister had planned to attend the camps.
After the police arrived on Ute Island, Breivik did not put up any resistance and was captured.
His goal has been achieved, to deter the government and the public with terrorist attacks, to make them abandon multiculturalist policies and oppose immigration.
Next, Breivik continued to use the court to promote his ultra-right position.
When we talk about the horrific events caused by extreme ideas, we must talk about the confrontation of ideas and concepts.
After the terrorist attack, the president quickly stepped forward and said that he would not accept the extreme demands of the killer.
But the real confrontation is not on the president's side, but in the courtroom, in the victims.
To some extent, the film restores the causes and consequences of this incident from four levels.
The first level is the violence provoked by extremist ideas, namely the bombings and massacres of civilians by the killers;
The second level is the mental and physical trauma of survivors, and the process by which they overcome their fears;
The third level is the rebuttal of the murderer, the horrible idea that penetrates deep into the bone marrow, so that his defense lawyer is helpless, but he must defend him in accordance with the legal procedures and respect his human rights;
The fourth level is that the survivors confront the murderer in court, and it is also the foothold of the whole film's values, that is, terror does not defeat justice and fraternity.
Neither the law nor the tears of the victims could shake Breivik's mind.
His extremely cruel massacre infuriated the Norwegian people and caused great harm to the people involved.
However, the process of trying him by law cannot end hastily, and he must still respect his right to a legitimate defense in accordance with legal procedures.
The film focuses on the physical and mental trauma of survivors and their families' efforts to rebuild their lives.
Using the three lines of murderer, lawyer and survivor, we explore the relationship between people in a rational and civilized society.
The rules and procedures of the law may offend the angry nerves of many people .
Why be so kind to a murderer, because that is the sense of rights and rational values that civilized society should uphold.
Paul Greengrass uses such a restrained but implicit attitude to feedback reality with "truth", present facts with "records", and tell the stories that should be told in his own style.