The greengrass of homeland

he fired-up, mega-budget sequel to amnesiac thriller The Bourne Identity isn’t perhaps the most obvious vehicle for the considerable talents of London born writer-director Paul Greengrass.

After all, the 48-year-old has spent the past few years crafting thoughtful, polemical docu-dramas such as The Murder Of Stephen Lawrence and Bloody Sunday, while also serving as screenwriter on the similarly charged Omagh.
“It was a bit of a change of pace”, explained the director when I caught up with him in London recently, “but only a bit. I had made three quite similar films and I just felt that I had reached the end of a chapter, and wanted to do something different. But Bourne was a surprise. I mean, I had no idea that Bloody Sunday was going to work so well internationally, because I just wanted it to work for the UK and Ireland – that’s the important audience. Suddenly, after the attention Bloody Sunday received in places like the Berlin Film Festival, it became clear that I could go to Hollywood and make a film there if I wanted, and I had a couple of offers, but there wasn’t enough about them to get me onboard. I wasn’t interested in doing any old crass bollox.”
The Bourne Supremacy, however, got Paul properly excited. Set in the subterranean world of secret assassins and shadowy CIA splinter groups, Bourne’s tormented protagonist – essayed with mechanical precision by Matt Damon – struggles with all manner of shifty espionage types, and weird fragmented dreams of a former life he can’t rightly recall.
“I’ve always wanted to make a thriller”, the former World In Action reporter tells me, “I mean. I think a lot of the work I’ve done is tense so it seemed logical. And Bourne seemed perfect. I loved the first one, I really clicked with Matt and it was a total adventure because I was working with completely new people who hadn’t made the kind of films I had, just as I hadn’t made the kind of films they had. So there was an interesting cross-fertilisation thing going on. But, as I wanted to do something different, doing a big commercial film seemed to fit the bill. I mean, bloody hell, everything I’ve ever done is completely uncommercial.”
Of course, given that the film features spies and shifting allegiances, The Bourne Supremacy is the latest work to generate gazillions of column inches speculating as to whether the franchise is (ironic feeble drum-roll) The New Bond. As all the poor souls who have bravely soldiered through The World Is Not Enough can testify, Bond may not be dead yet, but he’s looking awfully bloody tired, and Mr. Greengrass admits to being happily seduced by the notion of a 007 usurper.
“I think Bourne is an interesting and potentially important character. I mean most action heroes are basically superheroes – they’re affirmative and they have magical powers – whereas Jason Bourne is a real guy in a real world. He’s on the run from ‘Them’, while James Bond is ‘Them’. Bond is just imperialist swine sitting around the tables in Monte Carlo with those bloody martinis. Bourne’s totally different. He’s very much of our time. He’s looking at his government , and like everyone else, he’s asking – ‘What the fuck are they doing?’ And people get that about the movie and the character – that sense that we’ve been lied to by Them.”
With so many artistes having made similar treks across the Atlantic only to return bruised and broken, I wonder if Paul found his Hollywood taskmasters more stressful than he was perhaps used to?
“Well, the sequel thing was difficult to negotiate, because nobody wants to be the guy who brings down a franchise. And that’s especially true when it’s the second film, because that’s the real make or break one. But I didn’t find the experience all that bad. With a production this size, there are compromises, but contrary to popular belief, that’s what filmmaking is all about.”
Unless, of course, you happen to have a Kubrick complex.
“That’s true, but I’ll bet even with someone like Stanley Kubrick , that his best work came about when he was listening to people around him. Film, like everything else, should be open to debate and discussion.”
Paul’s admiration for open-mindedness has given him a great appreciation of our esteemed colleague and comrade Eamonn McCann, whom he worked with on Bloody Sunday.
“The great thing about Eamonn is that he didn’t always agree with every single thing that was in Bloody Sunday, but he was always happy to sit down and talk about it. That’s what makes him one of my great heroes. You tell him that, and be sure to say ‘Hello’.”
Consider it done, sir.

The Bourne Supremacy is on general release