By Iain Blair
Following a distinguished career in documentaries, director/producer/writer Paul Greengrass brought his unique cinema verité style and considerable gifts to Hollywood. His directing credits include the Bourne franchise, United 93, Captain Phillips and Green Zone. His latest film is News of the World, an elegiac western he co-wrote with Luke Davies, based on the acclaimed 2016 novel by Paulette Jiles.
Paul Greengrass on set
Set five years after the end of the Civil War, it stars Tom Hanks as Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a war veteran who now moves from town to town as a news-reader, sharing stories from around the globe. But his life changes dramatically when he crosses paths with Johanna (Helena Zengel), a 10-year-old taken in by the Kiowa people six years earlier and raised as one of their own.
I recently spoke with Greengrass, who grew up watching and loving westerns, about making the film. Key collaborators on News of the World, which is getting some Oscar buzz, included DP Dariusz Wolski, ASC, and editor William Goldenberg, ACE.
This reunited you and Tom Hanks, who starred in Captain Phillips, and Helena is mesmerizing. What did they bring to their roles?
There’s a tendency to take Tom a bit for granted as he’s got such range and he’s been so good for so long, but I think he’s one of the greatest movie stars of all time — right up there with Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda and so on.
Shooting in New Mexico
When I began this, I felt my biggest problem would be finding an 11-year-old who could play this huge, complex part opposite Tom and hold her own, but casting her actually turned out to be the easiest decision of the whole film. I wanted to cast a German girl, and the moment I saw her in System Crasher I knew she was the right person for the role. She’s a hard worker, prepared and just brilliant, with this huge emotional range that she can express without dialogue.
How tough was the shoot?
It was very tough — brutal, in fact. We shot for 55 days, all entirely on location in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, which doubled for Texas. It was boiling hot in the day and freezing cold at night, and we had a lot of rain work and tons of mud and dust, which makes shooting very difficult. The bluff sequence was a huge challenge as the crew had to climb up there on ropes, which took two hours up, two hours down. But as hard as the shoot was, it made it a real adventure for everyone.
The film is beautifully shot. Can you talk about the look you and Dariusz went for? It’s not the usual romanticized approach.
I knew I wanted a lot of different looks, but I also didn’t want it to look like one of my other films, so we went for a lot of empty landscapes and widescreen compositions, along with the more hand-held look for the town scenes. We shot with ARRI Alexas, and for a key scene with the Kiowa, we used the new 4K ARRI Mini LF with short zooms, so we could adjust the focal lens and get this incredible dust storm scene.
Where did you post? And how did COVID affect post?
We did it all in London at Goldcrest, but most of it was remote because of the pandemic. For instance, composer James Newton Howard was in LA, but we recorded the score at Abbey Road. Editor Billy Goldenberg, who cut 22 July for me, came to London where we began cutting together, but when COVID hit, he flew back home to LA, and we did the rest remotely.
When COVID hit, I thought, “This’ll be a huge challenge, we’ll never finish post now,” but after we got it all set up remotely, it went amazingly smoothly, and the technology’s so sophisticated now that you can post quite happily like that.
As a period-piece, there are bound to be visual effects. Can you talk about that post and VFX workflow?
With modern filmmaking, you’ve got to be doing post and your VFX simultaneously along with the rest of it. It’s 360-degree filmmaking, because as you’re shooting you’ve also got to be thinking about the editing and all the post. So we did a fair amount of previz and I use a tech called Adrian Spanna, and we’ve worked together for many years. He’s an artist really.
I don’t use storyboards in the traditional way or use plates. I like a tool that’s rough and ready and ultra-responsive to how I’m shooting, which can also help me identify tempo and rise and fall. So it’s not a full previz or a full storyboard plate either; it’s an amalgam, more like a bullet board, which lets me download what’s in my head so everyone can see what I’m aiming for. And then Gentle Giant and LIDAR Lounge did the Cyber and LIDAR scanning for the VFX.
Who did the VFX, and what did that entail?
Outpost VFX and Host VFX did the visual effects, and the San Antonio town square scene was the biggest and most complex sequence of all. We shot it live and it involved a lot of elements that we shot separately and composited in post.
This is the first time you’ve worked with composer James Newton Howard. Can you talk about the importance of sound and music in this film?
It’s half the experience in any film, but especially in one like this, and James wrote such a beautiful score that really evokes the epic scope of the story but also the intimate side of it. I wanted a score that sounded broken like the characters, and we also used a lot of old instruments.
Paul Greengrass
He’d send me demos while we shot and he’d work away on stuff in his LA studio. Then we did all the sound design and ADR and the final mix in Atmos at Goldcrest where I was. Simultaneously, on the Universal lot where Billy had a small crew on the stage, we linked both stages together virtually so we could work on it together in real time, and it felt awesome!
Tell us about doing the DI with Stephen Nakamura at Company 3.
That worked the same way as the mix. You can basically mirror everything now as the data workflows and technology are so good. So I’d be in Company 3 in London looking at shots and talking about the palette, and he’d be making corrections at their offices in LA, and it’d be as if he was sitting next to me. One of the big discoveries about post on this film was that despite having to work this way, if you embrace the technology and the virtual-ness of it, you really can do a lot.
This was definitely a change of pace for you. Have you always been a fan of westerns?
I’ve always loved westerns and grew up watching them as a boy. I just never thought I’d ever get to make one, but when I read the novel it really spoke to me, and I loved the characters and the setting. It’s about the healing power of storytelling, and although it’s set 150 years ago it seemed very relevant for today. It’s a journey of feelings for both Kidd and Johanna, who’ve both lost so much.
My last film, 22 July, was very dark, and the whole world seems very dark right now, and I wanted to do something more hopeful. I also wanted to break new ground as a filmmaker — slow the tempo down a bit and explore a more classical palette, and a western enabled me to do that.
Did the film turn out the way you hoped?
It did. It’s quite personal for me. It’s really about taking stock of your life and in today’s messed-up world it really hit home.
Image Credit: Bruce W. Talamon/Universal Pictures
Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.
