Paul Haggis
Tribute in his presence, Friday 4 April.
Masterclass in filmmaking and writing, Saturday 5 April.
How could one not be tempted by a masterclass in filmmaking and writing given by the man who directed COLLISION (CRASH) (2004), who wrote MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004), LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA (2006) and FLAG OF OUR FATHERS (2006) all directed by Clint Eastwood, along with the James Bond movies CASINO ROYALE (2006) and QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) ?
Paul Haggis was born in London, Ontario, Canada and moved to California in his early 20s.
For over two decades he has written, directed and produced television shows such as Thirtysomething and The Tracey Ullman Show. He created the acclaimed CBS series EZ Streets which the New York Times cited as one of the most influential shows of all time, noting, that without it "there would be no Sopranos."
In 2006, Haggis became the first screenwriter to write two Best Film Oscar winners back-to-back – Million Dollar Baby (2004) directed by Clint Eastwood, and Crash (2005) which he himself directed. For Crash, he won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The film also received an additional four nominations including one for Haggis’ direction and numerous awards during its year of release from associations such as the IFP Spirit Awards, the Screen Actors Guild, BAFTAs and the Grand Prize at the 2005 Deauville American Film Festival.
In 2007, Haggis’ screenplays included the duo Clint Eastwood productions Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, the latter earning him his third screenplay Oscar nomination. He also helped on the dialogues of Casino Royale, which garnered considerable acclaim for reinvigorating the James Bond spy franchise. Still in 2007, Haggis wrote, directed and produced In the Valley of Elah for Warner Independent Pictures. Haggis’ following project, The Next Three Days – a remake of a French film by Fred Cavayé – was produced by Highway 61, the production company formed with his friend and producing partner Michael Nozik.
Paul Haggis is the award-winning filmmaker whose most recent project is the romantic, personal drama Third Person which tracks the course of three interconnected love affairs set in Rome, Paris and New York. Paul Haggis is equally committed to his private and social concerns. He is the founder of Artists for Peace and Justice serving the children of the slums of Haiti. The director was a key element in the 25th anniversary updating of the We Are the World video which he directed and was used to benefit Haiti relief.
“[…] I love cranes, and love crane shots, and movement, and there was one great crane shot I had at the end of the film [Crash].
It started at the skyline, then it came down to Don Cheadle, then it came up and around and back and forth… It was just a breathtakingly beautiful shot. Then I looked at it and said ‘Ah, it’s too fancy.’ So I used the beginning and end of it, but the rest of the time, I stayed on Don’s close-up. My editor – Hughes Winborne, a great editor – and I finished cutting the whole movie, and he turned to me and said ‘You made a huge mistake : you have to put that shot back in. It’s just too fuckin’ beautiful, man.’ I said ‘Fine.’ So we put it back in, and we cut the negative. Now on a low budget film like this one, we had $6.5 million, so we didn’t have anything to cut other than the negative. So when you do that, you destroy frames. When I saw the entire crane shot put back in the film I said ‘I can’t do that. I have to put the close up back in.’ Hughes said ‘You destroyed the negative ! You cut it out !’ I said ‘I know,’ so we went back in and digitally created those frames, which you can do now, and we put Don’s close-up back in, because that told the story, and didn’t scream ‘Look at me, I’m a director !’
[…] You have a great freedom in film, especially independent film, to express things the way you want. There are a lot of great directors in television, and I got to work with many of them, and you soak in so much watching them work as writers or directors.
[…] In 1991 I was coming home with my then-wife after the opening of Silence of the Lambs. We were film junkies and one film was never enough, so we stopped off at the video store to get something else. We went to the video store and got some obscure Finnish movie we’d never seen. We were coming out to where we parked, and suddenly two men with guns walk up. I feel a gun in my back. The guy reached down, and grabbed the video, and they drove off. So the cops come, very quickly. I described the young men, the car and all the information. Then I decide to give them my theory of the crime. I said ‘I think those fellows have been here quite often. I get that feeling. I think they were here looking for that video. They’ve been here several times, and it was never in. They saw us coming out with it, felt it was too much to take, and they took the car to make their getaway.’ [Laughs] Over the next ten years, I thought about those two kids a lot, and they wouldn’t let me alone.
They kept popping up in my head, mostly late at night : who would do that ? What did they think of themselves ? Did they think of themselves as criminals ? Were they best friends ? What did they do with the car ? 10-12 years later, I woke up in the middle of night again, thinking about them again. I went ‘Fuck !’ so I finally decided to sit down, and write about it. But I decided to use them as my protagonists, rather than my villains, and tell the story from their point of view. I recently had become intrigued by how we affect strangers. So I asked myself those same questions : What did we do after we had the encounter with those two young guys ? We went home and changed the locks. Then I asked myself, how would I have felt if that kid had come to change the locks at two in the morning ? What if he was Hispanic ? What if he had buzzed hair and what looked like gang or prison tattoos ? Would I have felt safe ? ‘Fuck ! I hate that ! I hate asking that question !’ So I decided to put Sandra Bullock’s character in that position of having to admit it. But then wait, what happens to that kid who comes to change the locks ? So I followed him. And by ten in the morning, I had the whole story completed, with all these characters who’d come to me over the years.
[…] Well, [for Million Dollar Baby] it was culled from two short stories from Toole’s book, which was just about the relationship between Maggie (Hilary Swank) and Frankie (Clint Eastwood), there was no Scrap (Morgan Freeman) character, no priest, no deep belief in catholicism, no estranged daughter and nothing he was haunted by. It was just Frankie and Maggie, and him trying to train her. The other story was called Frozen Water. So I had to take those beautiful short stories and somehow surround them with a world and find a way to tell it. I knew I had to have narration, but I usually hate narration, because it’s such an easy tool. I knew I had to come up with some emotional way to justify it. I had a situation when I went through a very long, painful divorce and I was estranged from my youngest daughter for some time. It was horrible. So I took those feelings and experiences I had and put them in the story as something that maybe Frankie couldn’t forgive himself for.” (From interviews by Alex Simon, Venice Magazine & The Hollywood Interview.com, 2006 & January 2013)
SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY
Director
2013
THIRD PERSON
2010
THE NEXT THREE DAYS
2007
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH
2004
COLLISION (CRASH)
Screenwriter
2013
THIRD PERSON by Paul Haggis
2010
THE NEXT THREE DAYS by Paul Haggis
2008
QUANTUM OF SOLACE by Marc Forster
2007
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH by Paul Haggis
2006 LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA by Clint Eastwood
CASINO ROYALE by Martin Campbell
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS by Clint Eastwood
THE LAST KISS by Tony Goldwyn
2004
MILLION DOLLAR BABY by Clint Eastwood
COLLISION (CRASH) by Paul Haggis
Producer
2013
THIRD PERSON by Paul Haggis
2010
THE NEXT THREE DAYS by Paul Haggis
2007
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH by Paul Haggis
2006
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA by Clint Eastwood
2004
MILLION DOLLAR BABY by Clint Eastwood
COLLISION (CRASH) by Paul Haggis
