Jan 09 2008
Spielberg: Bourne Ultimatum and old-fashioned movies
Variety think “Paul Greengrass’s Bourne Ultimatum advances the art of action filmmaking and will change it forever”.
Others think that the movie debases the art of film, and makes them feel queasy.
Steven Spielberg:
“Quick-cutting is very effective in some movies, like the Bourne pictures, but you sacrifice geography when you go for quick-cutting. Which is fine, because audiences get a huge adrenaline rush from a cut every second and a half on The Bourne Ultimatum, and there’s just enough geography for the audience never to be lost, especially in the last Bourne film, which I thought was the best of the three. But, by the same token, Indy is a little more old-fashioned than the modern-day action adventure. I tried very hard, and I hope I succeeded, in not re-inventing the genre, because that would not make it an Indy movie. I just didn’t want to re-invent Indy in a way that would deny that these movies are more based on 1930s Hollywood pictures than anything else.” Vanity Fair
Good find Peter and an interesting discussion over at Vanity.
I’d say to a growing band of visual story tellers, video journalists and indeed film makers I know (very few :)) Greengass’ work represents something significant.
That it attracts a wide array of opinions, more often than not evoking discussion about the craft of film making, is part testimony.
Film making irrefutably is a living art and every director possesses a DNA, unique or recombinant, which either adds to the gene pool or not.
Pudovkin and Eisenstein which was raised as a post on Variety’s post and is often wheeled out when speaking genres isn’t contestable alongside Greengrass.
They are the Eves or Adams, much studied and dissected in film schools and in which thousands following have paid hommage one way or another e.g. BattleShip P. and The Untouchables.
The kinetic-aesthetic look Greengrass rides us along in Bourne has strands from a milestone visual shift in the 90s with US drama Homicide - Life on the Street (handheld) and Bochco’s NYPD Blue, where the plane of filmmaker frees up again and the viewer appears almost to be onset caught up in the frenzy.
Peter Yates’ Bullitt freed up areas of film directing before and many others have done since.
Hit TV series 24 does handheld, in some parts even with a DVCam - see if you can spot it.
For videojournalists like myself , Paul and his team up the ante.
There’s a photojournalistic quality and an added energy within the lens (those movements), let alone the scene, that has a visceral quotient a bit like Marmite (British spread) you either absolutely love it or you absolutely don’t.
Personally, I am hugely wowed, as are students from the Masters programme I teach - a position which obviously won’t be the same elsewhere.
But just as other directors and movies have influenced a genre, Greengrass has done something with the spy narrative and dramatic film (U93) that will yield comparisons alongside other directors and films I reckon for a long time to come.
David
I think Greengrass is just getting in to his stride. Bloody Sunday captured the attention of the Hollywood Honchos - I suspect Imperial Life in the Emerald City will be pivotal.