Transcript
TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. My guest today, director Paul Greengrass, makes films about the choices ordinary people make when they’re trapped inside forces they cannot control. He’s taken us to the streets of Derry as British soldiers opened fire on civil rights marchers in “Bloody Sunday,” aboard a hijacked plane on September 11 in “United 93” and onto a cargo ship seized by Somali pirates in “Captain Phillips.” His new film, “The Uprising,” takes on a story familiar to generations of English school children, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
In the film, the plague cut the population in half, making workers more valuable than ever. But the ruling class is determined to keep them in their place. When the government imposes a brutal tax to finance its wars, tens of thousands march on London. Andrew Garfield stars as an unnamed farmer called the Ploughman. He’s buried his wife and children and is deep in debt on land that no longer produces a crop. As the revolt gathers around him, his private grief becomes political rage. And in this scene, the radical priest John Ball, played by Jamie Bell, offers the Ploughman a new way to understand his suffering.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “THE UPRISING”)
JAMIE BELL: (As John Ball) God has taken much from you.
ANDREW GARFIELD: (As Ploughman) God left my fields long ago.
BELL: (As John Ball) No, He has not left you. It is His plan.
GARFIELD: (As Ploughman) His plan? Why would God have a plan to cause us such pain?
BELL: (As John Ball) Well, the sickness was His punishment for the crimes of the rich.
GARFIELD: (As Ploughman) So why do we suffer also?
BELL: (As John Ball) To show us the truth and fill us with rage. Surrender to it and it will set you free.
MOSLEY: I saw “The Uprising” earlier this summer. And since then, just weeks before the September 10 release, the film has taken on a surprising new frame, “The Rise Of Robin Hood.” Paul Greengrass, welcome back to FRESH AIR.
PAUL GREENGRASS: Oh, very nice to be here again.
MOSLEY: So, Paul, I am very curious about this connection between the Peasants’ Revolt and the story that we know of Robin Hood. Tell me about it.
GREENGRASS: Well, the film is about the Peasants’ Revolt, which is one of the greatest rebellions in English history, in 1381, in the middle of the medieval world. And it’s from that period that the legend of Robin Hood emerged. And the two are connected because both of them speak to a bitterly divided world between the rich and the poor. And one of the things that occurred – you know, Robin Hood was really just a moniker for an outlaw prior to 1381.
But after the Peasants’ Revolt, that was when the ballads and the legend of Robin Hood got going and became wildly popular in medieval England, because it spoke to people’s desires for a better world, a fairer world against, you know, the rapacious rich. And so, in the story of this simple farmer, he eventually becomes an outlaw. And he becomes an outlaw at a time when the Robin Hood legend was getting going. And it got going because of the world that the Peasants’ Revolt took place in.
MOSLEY: This is a story that you grew up learning as a schoolboy. And it came back up for you, though, during the pandemic.
GREENGRASS: Correct. Yeah.
MOSLEY: Take me to that place where you’re thinking about this story coming back up for you.
GREENGRASS: Well, yes, I started writing it in the pandemic. I’ve been thinking for a while about doing a sort of story rooted in English history and about sort of resistance and a sort of freedom-fighter-type film. And so when the pandemic came, when we were all locked down, it just became natural. What I wanted was to do a story about an ordinary person, an ordinary farmer caught up in tumultuous events, events that would feel, I think, although it’s set in the medieval world, would feel very familiar to an audience today.
Because I think, in many ways, when you think of the turbulence in our world today, it is driven by these great inequalities and the rage that people feel about elites, and all those things that wherever you are on the political spectrum, I think we recognize that that’s what’s going on in your country and mine, and Europe, and beyond. And it just seemed to me that this story really spoke to that.
MOSLEY: You know, I was really struck by the fact that, I mean, we lost more than 1 million people to COVID in this country. And during the plague, half of England…
GREENGRASS: Unimaginable, really, isn’t it?
MOSLEY: It is unimaginable.
GREENGRASS: I mean, when you look back, it’s only a few years. And yet it seems like we haven’t really processed it properly. But I think that’s how it goes. I think these things work in subterranean and mysterious ways. And it certainly was the case in medieval Europe.
MOSLEY: Yeah. Take me to that place because, right, we have lost so many people, not so long ago. And these people, these characters in this film are living that same reality. It is after losing an unimaginable amount of people to the plague. And one of the things that really struck me is how numb they seem to feel.
GREENGRASS: Yeah, I think that’s right.
MOSLEY: Disassociated.
GREENGRASS: Yeah. And this was the first time that plague came to Europe, you know? And it literally – we call it in England, or it was called, you know, the death, the great plague. It wiped out literally half the population, literally, and the same in Europe. And so, in the decades after the plague, people were left, as you say, numb, and then this gathering rage at a system that seemingly privileged the rich and the powerful over the weak and the defenseless. And, you know, the economy faltered, government didn’t seem to work.
And in the end, all it took was a spark. And then suddenly you had this enormous rebellion, almost overnight. It was extraordinary. And within days, a huge army, mob, gathering, whatever you want to call them – tens and tens of thousands of people marching on London. And they marched on London, and they besieged the city, and they got in. And what followed was – it all took place really over five or six days. And that’s really the story of the film.
The march on London, getting in, the mayhem. The attempts to fashion a new form of society, a fairer future, all those things, the hopes and dreams of any rebellion. That’s a kind of classic movie story, really, and a great adventure. And certainly, what I wanted to do was to, you know, not make a dry history lesson. I want – I like my movies to entertain people…
MOSLEY: Well, the…
GREENGRASS: …And to have spectacle and scale.
MOSLEY: The movie certainly does that. But it has all the pieces of – like, there’s so many parallels to what is happening to us in this moment, except for the revolt.
GREENGRASS: Well, even some elements of that we’ve seen in your recent history, you know, the invasions in D.C. You know, it’s not a million miles away. I think…
MOSLEY: The insurrection?
GREENGRASS: Yeah. I think people – you know, I’m not making a political point. What I’m saying is that there is a great rage out there, I think. And all of us know it.
MOSLEY: It’s an underlying rage, yeah.
GREENGRASS: It is, it is. I feel like in our country. I’m sure it’s there in yours. And at some level, our governments seem unable to address it. And that, I think, is going to be the big challenge going forward.
MOSLEY: You research a film pretty deeply, in ways like an investigative reporter or documentarian does. And I’ve wondered about the casting, as you say, because we can’t know. I mean, it’s medieval times, so there’s not an autobiography written. But something you have said – when you cast Tom Hanks in some of your previous films, you’ve said you loved everyman that he was.
GREENGRASS: Yeah.
MOSLEY: The chance that he can be compared to Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda. What did Andrew Garfield give to this particular character of Ploughman?
GREENGRASS: The same thing, really – a sort of everyman quality, a mixture of strength and vulnerability, an emotional kind of quality to him. And also, you know, because it’s a story of a rebellion and, you know, there’s a tremendous amount of action in it, he has to be able to do all that. He was fantastic – a really good partner in it.
MOSLEY: Then there’s the king, played by Woody Norman. He’s a boy of 14. He’s troubled. He’s untested. He is a reluctant leader, maybe not fit to even be one, you know? He’s a child that has been raised to believe that he has been chosen by God, and he’s surrounded by men who are ruling in his name. OK, side note about this king. He felt very much to me like a mix of Michael Jackson and Joffrey from “Game Of Thrones.” There was just – of course…
GREENGRASS: Yeah.
MOSLEY: …There’s just a fragility to him. Like, how did you conceive him?
GREENGRASS: Well, the real Richard II was the boy king. He was clearly mentally ill – mental-health issues of a profound way. I mean, really profoundly. He was very cruel. But at his core, the problem was that he was brought up to believe that he was the messiah. And he was controlled by these cynical, wealthy oligarchs around him. And as he became sort of 14, which meant that he was on the cusp of boyhood and manhood, he really, in the course of these events, became the dominant figure because it fell to him to deal with this rebellion. And, you know, the story of the film really is the extent to which he meets that challenge and the way in which he meets it. Because in the end, you know, the true story of Richard is that he became the great tyrant that we know from history.
MOSLEY: Did you write some of the songs in this?
GREENGRASS: I wrote the lyrics in the songs.
MOSLEY: The lyrics?
GREENGRASS: Yeah.
MOSLEY: Right – the lyrics.
GREENGRASS: Volker wrote the songs.
MOSLEY: Was this the first time that you wrote lyrics for a song ever in – or…
GREENGRASS: Well, I’ve done a few, but it’s the first time in a film. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, Volker Bertelmann wrote a fantastic score and we just – I wanted – of course it’s a – part of the story is the story of the march – of the rebel march on London. And, of course, people would have sang songs, for sure, and they would have been probably religious songs, mixture of hymns, but also sort of simple folk songs and also protest songs, you know?
I mean, if you think of the great movements – you know, I made a film many years ago about Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland. You know, people sang songs on the way down in that march. That’s what you do. They’re protest songs, and it would have been no different in medieval England. So we wanted to have that feeling running through it because it’s part of the hopes and dreams that lead people to march for change, you know?
MOSLEY: Music is so…
GREENGRASS: Oh, yeah.
MOSLEY: …Such a foundational part of that. But I – not knowing that you wrote music or you wrote lyrics. Are you a songwriter?
GREENGRASS: I have a group of friends and we have a little band and we tootle around a bit.
MOSLEY: Yeah?
GREENGRASS: We released a single last year, which was good fun, so…
MOSLEY: Seriously?
GREENGRASS: Yeah, yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: So…
MOSLEY: What kind of music?
GREENGRASS: Well, kind of rootsy, you know, dad music, you know? What can I say? (Laughter).
MOSLEY: (Laughter) Dad music?
(LAUGHTER)
MOSLEY: Wait. What’s the name of the single?
GREENGRASS: I’m not 20, you know.
MOSLEY: (Laughter).
GREENGRASS: I’m a bit older than that. So, you know, it’s got to be mellow music, you know?
MOSLEY: Yeah. Oh, we’re going to have to find this single.
GREENGRASS: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: Yeah (laughter).
GREENGRASS: Oh, my Lord.
MOSLEY: But, you know, I mean, your films are famous for not really leading people on how to feel. Like, the score does not work in that way. And so I’m – I was really fascinated when I saw that you had wrote the lyrics here because I feel like you’re very intentional in the way you use sound and the way you use score. You never lead us.
GREENGRASS: No.
MOSLEY: You know how music can…
GREENGRASS: I try not to.
MOSLEY: …Elicit a feeling?
GREENGRASS: It’s very, very important. You want people to be drawn into a story, and then you’ve got to let them have the experience of the movie and then they take from it what they take from it. You know, you never want to tell people what to think or feel. You know, part of the magic of movies, I think, is that relationship that you have between the film that you make and the – and what the audience bring and take from it.
MOSLEY: My guest today is award-winning film director Paul Greengrass. His new film, “The Uprising,” stars Andrew Garfield and tells the story of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, when tens of thousands of English farmers and laborers rose up against the Crown. We’ll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE WESTERLIES’ “PLEASE KEEP THAT TRAIN AWAY FROM MY DOOR”)
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today we’re talking with award-winning film director Paul Greengrass. His latest film, “The Uprising,” stars Andrew Garfield as a farmer who rises to lead the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Twenty years ago, Greengrass made “United 93,” which recreates in real time the hijacked flight on September 11 where passengers fought back. He built it from the official record in interviews with more than a hundred family members of those on board.
You know, Paul, rewatching “United 93,” I mean, it really took me back to that day, and I was trying to find the right ways to articulate this to you. It made me feel innocent again. It took me to the place I felt when it happened and when we didn’t really know what this all meant. And I happened to be watching it with my 19-year-old daughter, and I looked over at her at a certain point and she was just sobbing, and I sobbed, too. And it was the first time in a long time that I’ve cried about September 11.
GREENGRASS: Well, it remains a great – you know, a pivotal event, a great wound. I mean, it was an intense film to make. It was a great privilege to make it, I think, for all of us who took part. And the relationships that we made with those families who lost family members on board, it was the most extraordinary thing. In fact, they’re about to have a screening at the Gettysburg Film Festival and, unfortunately, I can’t be there ’cause I’m here in Los Angeles, but I sent a message, and there’s going to be a lot of family members there and there’s some actors who took part.
And one of the things – I’ve actually found it incredibly moving sort of being taken back to the experience of making it and those relationships with those extraordinary people and to think for a moment about what was accomplished on board that airplane. And I did say in my remarks that it was very fitting, I think, that that screening is at the Gettysburg Film Festival and that we think of that astonishing address that your president gave.
MOSLEY: (Inaudible) address.
GREENGRASS: And what he said was, it has fallen to us. He was talking, of course, about the legacy of the Civil War to fashion – to see if we can meet the test, the challenge.
MOSLEY: Meet the moment.
GREENGRASS: Meet the moment. And what I said and believed is that those people on board that airplane, as that plane closed as it was on the Capitol building with no military aircraft in sight to stop it, it felt to that group of people to meet the moment. And they did, and I think that’s inspiring. And when we think of the problems and divisions – I’m talking about my country, but I’m sure it’s true in your country, too – of today, 25 years later, and the difficulties we have and the divisions that’s out there and the inability for us to come together as well as we all might as societies. I did think at that moment of those people. And that coming together in that moment of extremists on that airplane facing that situation, unimaginable. They did come together, and I think that’s inspiring for your country, but for all of us, I think.
MOSLEY: I actually want to play a clip from the film. In this scene, passengers on the plane are coming to understand that the plane has been hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists and that it is probably not going to land. This is the moment when they realize this. Let’s listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “UNITED 93”)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) We’re OK. Oh, we’re OK.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Oh my God.
JEFFREY NORDLING: (As Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.) Hey, this is a suicide mission. We have to do something. They are not going to land this plane. They are not going to take us back to the airport.
COREY JOHNSON: (As Louis J. Nacke, II) If we’re going to die, we’re going to die. They’re flying this into a building.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) You should not interfere with things.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) There’s a lot of us, but we got to do something. You see how low we are?
NORDLING: (As Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.) Is there a weapon? Is there something we can use? Go back. You go back. Stewardess, listen to me. Are you listening?
PATRICIA HARRAS: (As Sandy Bradshaw) I’m listening.
NORDLING: (As Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.) Go back and you get every…
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character, inaudible).
NORDLING: (As Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.) …Get every weapon you can. Get whatever we can use as a weapon.
MOSLEY: That was from the film “United 93,” directed by my guest today, Paul Greengrass. You went to the families of those on board, and you had conducted more than 100 interviews before you wrote a word.
GREENGRASS: Yeah.
MOSLEY: What did they give you that the official record and their detailed statements could not, because you had those as well. You could have written an entire film based on those.
GREENGRASS: I think they gave us two things. One, their encouragement and support, without which we would never have made the film. And that support and trust that they gave us that they didn’t need to have done was what really gave wings to that film, gave it the ability to be what it was. And then the second thing they gave us was who the people were on the plane, you know, and enabled the group of actors to embody those people.
And, you know, it remains, you know, the most – the greatest privilege of my working life to make that film. And I’m forever in their debt, and I think we all are. They’re an extraordinary group of men and women of very different opinions about their society and the world, but brought together by that common shared moment of tragedy but also of astonishing courage and achievement.
MOSLEY: Our guest today is film director Paul Greengrass. We’ll be right back after a short break. I’m Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU’S “AFTER BACH: RONDO”)
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. And my guest today is award-winning film director Paul Greengrass. His new film, “The Uprising,” stars Andrew Garfield as a farmer who loses his family to the plague and rises to lead the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 – the rebellion that helped inspire the legend of Robin Hood. Greengrass is known for putting audiences inside real events as they happen – the streets of Derry on Bloody Sunday, the hijacked plane on September 11 in “United 93” and the cargo ship seized by pirates in “Captain Phillips.” Before he made these films, Greengrass spent a decade documenting conflicts around the world.
Another pivotal moment is a very recent film that you directed. In 2025, your film “The Lost Bus” took us back to 2018, to the camp fire in Paradise, California, in which 85 people died, more than 18,000 buildings burned and the town of Paradise was basically all…
GREENGRASS: Destroyed, yeah.
MOSLEY: …But erased. It remains one of the deadliest wildfires in California history. And I covered that fire. I was there a few days after it happened and I spent several weeks there. And rewatching your film, I realized how much I had let myself forget. And these are such big events that change who we are, and yet, it’s so interesting, the human condition, how we – a few years past it, we can completely almost erase it from our minds in a way, maybe as a coping mechanism to get through it. And your films bring us back to that place, but not in a place where it – there’s an indictment. There’s almost, like, a tap on the shoulder, in a way.
GREENGRASS: Yes, I suppose. I think it’s really important that the films that you make reward your audience for the privilege of giving you two hours of their time, you know? So I don’t want to ever make a film for people that is, you know, boring or worthy or giving them a lecture or anything like that. You want them to have a – an intense experience in the cinema or a cinematic experience. That’s what the movies are about. You can get to a place of hope. I don’t think I’ve ever made a film that doesn’t have hope at the heart of it. In fact, I’m sure of it.
MOSLEY: I want to talk a little bit about you and growing up. You grew up in public housing in – it’s Graves (ph)? How would you describe it? I was trying to figure…
GREENGRASS: No, I wouldn’t say public housing.
MOSLEY: …Out what was it.
GREENGRASS: No. I grew up – I mean, my father was at sea. He was what we would call a merchant mariner, essentially. He was in the navy as a young, young man in the second world war, and then he went into the civilian marine fleet. My mother was a teacher, and – but I – so I would say I grew up in a seafaring family. That’s what I would say. Which is a particular sort of an upbringing because it involves solitary men who are very rarely there ’cause they’re at sea…
MOSLEY: He’s (inaudible).
GREENGRASS: …And strong women who have to cope on their own, which would be my mother. And that’s, of course, the story of a seafaring family. And, you know, for thousands of years, that’s the paradigm, really, of a seafaring family, I think.
MOSLEY: Your dad – how often was he gone and what was it like when he came back?
GREENGRASS: Well, he was away for very long periods of time – six months. You know, it could be three months, it could be nine months. One time it was 18 months. And then later on, he stopped the long trips and started to – when he became a pilot, that would be a day or two or three and back and – you know, ’cause he was really guiding the ships in rather than taking the long trips around the world.
MOSLEY: And how old were you when that shift happened – that change?
GREENGRASS: I guess I’d have been about 11, I think. Something like 10 or 11. So, you know, quite an important time. And that was quite interesting when he came home, as it were…
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: …Because my mother and father had to learn then how to live together.
(LAUGHTER)
GREENGRASS: And that was quite entertaining for us children.
MOSLEY: Right, ’cause your mom had the household…
GREENGRASS: Oh, yeah.
MOSLEY: …On lock. She was doing her thing, yeah…
GREENGRASS: Yeah, she did.
MOSLEY: …Running the household.
GREENGRASS: Yeah, yeah. That was – and so that was pretty tempestuous, I can’t lie.
MOSLEY: Oh. In what way? What do you mean?
GREENGRASS: Well, solitary man, dominant woman. That’s how it is, you know? And they had to – they clashed. But, you know, they got through and they lived a long life. I lost my dad last year…
MOSLEY: Oh, I’m sorry.
GREENGRASS: …Finally. He was very, very – oh, no, he was very, very old. He was 98, 99.
MOSLEY: Wow.
GREENGRASS: But he – they were together till the end – very devoted, actually. But it was a marriage of opposites, I would say (laughter).
MOSLEY: Can I repeat something back to you that I’ve heard you say in an interview? You said directors are made by childhood loneliness and domestic conflict, and you had both. What is the connection to having that type of life and being a director?
GREENGRASS: I would say that it is a strange a thing to end up making films, and I think it is to do with childhood loneliness. I do. I think childhood loneliness and experiences of cinema, too. You know, I remember as a young boy, my grandmother taking me to the movies, and those being very, very profound experiences. You know, seeing “Snow White” as a young, young, young, young child, I can still remember that.
So I think my sense is that if your home is perhaps more conflicted, perhaps, than it should be in an ideal world, then the movie theater becomes a place where you can escape and have these very intense, solitary experiences in front of a screen. And so I think later, if you get to start to pursue the life of a filmmaker, you’re sort of drawing on those experiences. Those are the profound sort of emotional wellsprings that drive you to make films. And one of the things you’re trying to achieve, I think, is to try and create cinematically the intensity of the experiences that you have in front of a screen…
MOSLEY: Screen.
GREENGRASS: …In a movie theater when you’re very, very young. That would be my feeling.
MOSLEY: Your grandma took you to see “Snow White,” but do you remember the movies that just took hold of you as a young man?
GREENGRASS: Oh, I remember “Snow White,” yeah.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: I can remember – I must have been 4 or 5…
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: …But I can remember it absolutely vividly, being terrified, absolutely terrified, and in…
MOSLEY: Of the movie itself? Yeah.
GREENGRASS: Of course. And being in love with “Snow White,” of course, and, you know, I can remember, you know, we used to have Saturday matinees. You know, they’d be comedies, you know? I can remember “The Sound Of Music.” Still to this day one of my favorite films. You know, the experiences that you have in a movie theater are the most precious things that you draw on, really, because somewhere if you can locate the truthfulness of the emotional reactions that you have, that’s what you’re trying to give your audience, if you can, fashion something that can give your audience something of those same feelings, you know?
MOSLEY: Let’s take a short break. If you’re just joining us, my guest today is film director Paul Greengrass, the Academy Award-nominated director of “United 93” and “Captain Phillips.” His new film, “The Uprising,” starring Andrew Garfield, tells the story of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. We’ll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF KYLE EASTWOOD, ET AL.’S “SAMBA DE PARIS”)
MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR, and today I am talking with award-winning film director Paul Greengrass about his new film “The Uprising.”
When did you know this was your direction, that you were going to be – you were going to tell stories? Like, because I know that you had a career working, traveling…
GREENGRASS: Well, it was…
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: I mean, I think that when I was a teenager, I found life quite difficult, I think.
MOSLEY: You were thrown out of two schools.
GREENGRASS: (Laughter) I was, yeah.
MOSLEY: What did you do?
GREENGRASS: I mean, not bad things. I just was not attentive and wasn’t really very interested and, you know, truanted a bit and just generally was not the right sort of – I found living inside institutions quite hard, you know? I was quite rebellious, I suppose. But when I got a bit older, I was very lucky. I had an art teacher who was a very wonderful man, who really showed me that using my eyes and painting and printmaking, and that it was a safe space and it was a place where I could express myself. And that’s where I made my first film. I was very young. I would’ve been about 16 or 17.
MOSLEY: Oh, what was that film about?
GREENGRASS: It was really a horror film, and it was only about 30 seconds long, but I shot it with a friend of mine. And I just found myself transported. But I wouldn’t say I decided there and then, I’m going to make movies, because who thinks like that at 16 or 17?
MOSLEY: Right, right.
GREENGRASS: And then I went to college and came out and started working in television and originally made documentaries. And that really, I suppose, is the making of me because I kind of traveled a lot and saw a lot of the world and began to understand what the world was about a bit more. But I always had a hunger to make movies. It would’ve been a secret desire, I think, because it would’ve been a bit preposterous to have said it publicly, obviously.
MOSLEY: And as a documentary filmmaker, yeah.
GREENGRASS: It was a hard transition to make.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: But I did get there in the end.
MOSLEY: I want to go back, though, to your documentary filmmaking because I’m really curious about those experiences and how they have helped shape what you put on screen today, because you were in Beirut…
GREENGRASS: I was, yeah.
MOSLEY: …During the civil war, South Africa under apartheid, Central America in the middle of its wars. You were in your 20s at this time.
GREENGRASS: I was.
MOSLEY: You’re seeing things that…
GREENGRASS: Ridiculously young.
MOSLEY: Yes. But you’re seeing things…
GREENGRASS: Northern Ireland during the…
MOSLEY: Oh, yeah.
GREENGRASS: …The Troubles, yeah.
MOSLEY: During the Troubles. You are seeing things.
GREENGRASS: The Philippines in the revolution. Yep.
MOSLEY: When you think about the time period in your life in your young 20s, is there any one particular moment that really stands out to you, that you really come back to thinking about from time to time in the building of your craft?
GREENGRASS: Well, there’s a welter of memories, I suppose. I mean, you know, I’ve got some regrets about that period because I was away, and I had young children. And I didn’t really see them because that was what you did in those days. And you, as a young man, you’re reckless. And the job demands that you go off and do those things. So there’s that side of things. But in terms of understanding how the world works – you know, the program that I worked on was a program called “World In Action.”
That was what it was called. The title of which belonged to John Grierson, who’s the founder of documentary film, really. He’s sort of the grandfather of it, if you want to call it that. He had this phrase. And it was bought and became a very, very successful television show in the U.K. and around the world, actually. And I think that’s what I made. I was trained to make those films about the world in action. And I like to feel that many years later, I’m still making films about the world in action.
That sort of sounds trite. And I suppose it is, perhaps. But that is, as it seems to me, true. And when I think of those experiences, you know, I mean, things come to mind. I can remember being in Beirut, the first time that I experienced sort of being in, you know, a war zone, as it were. The first morning we got there, we landed at Jounieh Port. We had to walk into Beirut at night, which was pretty dangerous, I have to say.
And then we got there. And we were – I was with a very famous English documentary cameraman called George Jesse Turner and a sound man called Phil Taylor. And we were standing – or actually inside a building when an air raid started. And he was, George was, changing film. In those days, you were shooting on film. It wasn’t digital.
MOSLEY: Yeah.
GREENGRASS: And you changed your film magazines in what they called a day bag. So you could film – you could put your hands in, and – you know, as a young boy, you have to be trained so you could do it without exposing the film and change a magazine. He was changing a magazine when the raid started. And I’d never been. And I literally jumped down the stairwell, literally, and emerged when it was over about 10 minutes later looking quite worse for wear.
(LAUGHTER)
GREENGRASS: And I had actually peed my trousers, to be absolutely honest to what had happened. And when I emerged, he was, George was still – George and Phil were still standing there with their hands in the day bag. And they looked at me and they laughed so loudly. They were like, where did you go?
(LAUGHTER)
GREENGRASS: I was like, what are you talking about? Where’s the – I jumped down the still and said, no, no, no, no, no. And I said, listen, if we run, that’s when you need to really be worried…
MOSLEY: Hey.
GREENGRASS: …’Cause they’ve done it…
MOSLEY: Right?
GREENGRASS: They’ve done it many…
MOSLEY: Yes.
GREENGRASS: …Many times, yeah. So that was the tip. If George doesn’t run, you don’t have to worry about it.
MOSLEY: Right.
GREENGRASS: So that was one lesson I had. But…
MOSLEY: But then, ultimately, you became the guy that – the younger guys had to look to you. If you run, then it’s time.
GREENGRASS: I guess so, I guess so, yeah. But there were many, many experiences. I remember, for instance, being in – the first time I worked in Northern Ireland, when it was the middle of the hunger strikes, and I remember going into the Maze prison. That was an extraordinary day. And we shot inside the cells there. And you saw these cells, and there was a card outside each cell. You know, it would have the name, and it would have the date of birth. And I suddenly realized that I was looking at a whole generation of young men of exactly my age. You know, I would have been, I suppose, 24, so – 24, I think – remember when we went in there. They were all young men who were serving these enormously long sentences, for the most horrendous acts of violence.
But you couldn’t go in and see this as a crime wave. Obviously, something had happened in this society to create this enormous essentially civil war where people felt that their only option was to go to war. And I’m not seeking to justify it, you know, but that was the reality, and that taught me a very valuable lesson. Why do young men take up arms? They take up arms because the rage gets so bad. It’s better to do that than not to. So, you know, that’s always taught me a lesson. I often think of that.
MOSLEY: Your wife, Joanna, she produces your films. And she has said – I’m hoping I’m getting this right – but she says how you work, it’s not good for your health, but it’s good for the film.
GREENGRASS: (Laughter).
MOSLEY: And so when you were talking about you as a young man, and, you know, you’re out there, I think it is the choice that so many people who are driven by something they love to do (inaudible). What does she see? Because it’s good for the film.
GREENGRASS: Well, one of the joys is working together ’cause our kids now are grown up, so we can go wherever we want, and we can make our movies. And, you know, when we were younger, it was always a bigger challenge. How do we make sense of it all and, you know, deal with that? Now we don’t have that problem. So it’s all joyful that way, and it was an absolutely lovely experience.
And she’s the wisest person, so – and, you know, when you get – look, filmmaking is a – in some ways, it’s a little bit like sports, actually, professional sports, you know – I do feel that as I get older, you know – in the sense that when you cross that line, you know, when a football player goes out in the field, they’re not kidding around. They’re going out there to win. They’re going to leave it all out there. And filmmaking is the same, that same sense that for all of you in front of camera, particularly the actors, you know, you’re trying to create this collective endeavor where you leave it all out there.
MOSLEY: Paul Greengrass, I feel so lucky that I had a chance to talk with you.
GREENGRASS: Oh, it’s been great.
MOSLEY: Thank you for this conversation.
GREENGRASS: Thank you for having me.
MOSLEY: Director Paul Greengrass was my guest. His new film, “The Uprising,” will be in theaters on September 10.
Coming up, film critic Justin Chang reviews the new drama “Filipiñana,” which follows a teenage girl who’s just started working at an upscale resort in Manila. This is FRESH AIR.
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