Psycho Drama: Great filmmakers on directing thrillers

“Action is a good way of expressing character.” The words of Paul Greengrass, from his Film Programme masterclass on directing thrillers. Here are some more directing greats discussing their approach to the genre.

Alfred Hitchcock
(Psycho, North By Northwest, Vertigo)

"Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film."

Alfred Hitchcock

Christopher Nolan
(Inception, Memento, Interstellar)

"To me that's one of the most compelling fears in film noir and the psychological thriller genre – that fear of conspiracy. It's definitely something that I have a fear of – not being in control of your own life. I think that's something people can relate to, and those genres are most successful when they derive the material from genuine fears that people have."

Claude Chabrol
(La Cérémonie, Le Boucher, Le Beau Serge)

"Stupidity is infinitely more fascinating that intelligence. Intelligence has its limits while stupidity has none."

Bryan Singer
(The Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, Valkyrie)

"Perception has always interested me. The idea that behind every face, there are a thousand faces. Beneath the placid veneer of middle America, there lies terror."

Martin Scorsese
(Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull)

"I think all of us, under certain circumstances, could be capable of some very despicable acts. And that's why, over the years, in my movies I've had characters who didn't care what people thought about them. We try to be as true to them as possible and maybe see part of ourselves in there that we may not like."

Martin Scorsese

Kathryn Bigelow
(The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, Near Dark)

"I think violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive."

Jacques Audiard
(The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet, Rust and Bone)

"What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognises. I can use that to create something very big."

Brian De Palma
(Scarface, The Untouchables, Carlito's Way)

"That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time."

Park Chan-wook
(Oldboy, Lady Vengeance, The Handmaiden)

"All of the characters in my films, they share one commonality. It doesn't matter whether they are good or bad, it doesn't matter whether they are smart or stupid, these characters all take responsibility for their own behaviour. I'm much the same."

David Lynch
(Blue Velvet, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive)

"If we didn't want to upset anyone, we would make films about sewing, but even that could be dangerous. But I think finally, in a film, it is how the balance is and the feelings are. But I think there has to be those contrasts and strong things within a film for the total experience."

Kathryn Bigelow

John Huston
(The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle)

"The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it."

Fritz Lang
(M, Clash By Night, The Big Heat)

"I am profoundly fascinated by cruelty, fear, horror and death. My films show my preoccupation with violence, the pathology of violence."

Listen to How to Direct a Thriller by Paul Greengrass online now.