Anyone who wonders what happened to director Paul Greengrass and the hyper-editing style that made him famous can look at the editors he’s chosen to work with. Starting with The Bourne Supremacy in 2004, Greengrass relied on Christopher Rouse who liked to use the many cameras Greengrass would cover an action scene with to build excitement. Rouse worked on six features with Greengrass, with Oscar nominations for United 93 and Captain Phillips and a win for The Bourne Ultimatum. Recently, Greengrass has been working with William Goldenberg (Argo, Zero Dark Thirty), which has led to a different visual style.
The Bourne Ultimatum was their best collaboration, and clearly showed what put them above the many shaky-cam imitations that followed. Greengrass didn’t create visual chaos, he mapped out a strategy for each sequence and would build in objects that had particular sound elements to help with the spatial geography. He knew where the important moments of impact were – a punch, a sudden stop on a motorcycle, a jump through a window – and Rouse would give those moments of elegance their space within the scene.
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