A few quick things I want to mention as Victoria finishes up her The Bourne Ultimatum review:
1. I want to thank all of you that have been regularly reading the blog. Victoria and I have had a lot of fun writing it so far, and we have enjoyed getting your feedback too.
2. I will be posting a picture of the box very soon. For those of you wondering, there are 276 films in the crate. So far we've watched 5. The earliest is 1928, the latest 2013, and three of them are foreign language films - 2 Italian, 1 French. 3. We are no longer an engaged couple - we got married! Instead of a soon-to-be married couple romantically reviewing films together, we are a husband/wife movie-blogging team!
Well, as we’ve discussed, franchise fatigue is a thing, and I’ve got it bad for the Bourne series. Not that The Bourne Ultimatum is a bad film at all - I think it’s probably the strongest in the series after the first film (beating out The Bourne Supremacy, which we’ve discussed, and The Bourne Legacy, which we’ll pretend doesn’t exist). In order to be a good film reviewer, I’ll shelve my boredom with watching Matt Damon glower and try to give you my honest opinion about the film.
The fact of the matter is that, though The Bourne Ultimatum has its problems (which I’ll get to), it does a lot of things right. The action sequences are rarely plodding, and most often manage to impress with the cleverness of their staging. The sequence early on, in which Bourne attempts to guide a dimwitted journalist through a crowd and away from CIA assassins is particularly well done. Greengrass opens up the action in this film, moving it out of narrow European streets and into wide-open spaces filled with numerous moving parts. This proves exceptionally compelling. These scenes make it easier for me to buy into the conceit that Damon is a super-spy than anything in either of the prior two films, simply because we see him managing large amounts of information - people, targets, trains, traffic, etc. - and adapting to multiple changes in real time.
Ideologically this film attempts to progress some of the anti-bureaucracy sentiments of the first two films, and this time presents an intelligence agency that not only is clunky and inept, but that is malevolent too. Watching all of the phone-tapping and record-stealing going on in this movie, it’s hard not to think about recent revelations concerning the NSA and data collection. Privacy being something we are at least nominally still thinking about as a culture makes this movie a little spookier than it probably was upon its release in 2007. David Strathairn’s heart-healthy omelet-eating Deputy Director is an effective villain in that he, given the power to have his agents shoot first and ask questions later, is so far removed from the actual action that he has no qualms taking out anyone, including civilians, that might get in his way. Greengrass is trying to make a Hanna Arendt-esque “banality of evil” point with Strathairn’s character, asking the audience to think seriously about what happens when nebbish office-dwellers are given unmonitored power over the health and well being of others. Not good things, it turns out. Even those concerned with their cholesterol will kill if given the chance.
My problems with this film are two-fold. First, related to my prior comment, though Greengrass points out a particular kind of evil, he doesn’t go any farther than simply noticing it. We are encouraged to think about mundane atrocities, but are not invited, it seems, to think about where this comes from, or why. What is the problem with Strathairn’s character, for example? Should we be frustrated with particular policies that enable a person like him, or should we be upset with bureaucracy in general? The movie leaves the question too vague to be satisfying.
My second problem stems from the first film. My big issue with The Bourne Identity was that it left unexplained the awakening of Bourne’s conscience. This film attempts to answer this question, albeit with all the grace of a tip-toeing gorilla. Bourne chose to be evil from the beginning, we discover, he wasn’t forced to be bad (or, at least, not directly forced) by some nefarious government program. Bourne’s conscience is supposed to be an enigma to us, a miracle of humanity that managed to blossom despite the best efforts of Albert Finney and Co. to keep it in check. While I have zero problem accepting that people are something of a mixed bag, containing the will to do evil as well as good, I think that, in the interest of a functional narrative, something more believable than spotting a target’s kid should have been presented somewhere within these film’s collective runtime.
All this being said, I’ve enjoyed watching these films with you, and look forward to watching something that doesn’t involve either Matt Damon or shaky-cam next.
You touch on some worthwhile points in your review that I want to be sure to address in mine. Before I get to that, though, I want to let you know that much of what I’m going to talk about is going to center on the difference between what I think Greengrass is trying to do, and what the movie actually is. This might seem a bit unfair at first blush, but I don’t think so, because this movie fails the first test every single sequel in the history of filmdom has to pass: this film fails to justify its existence over and against its first episode (granted, most of Hollywood doesn’t play by this rule, but it should - it’s the one thing good sequels, like The Godfather Part II or The Empire Strikes Back or, heck, even Spiderman 2, have in common). There isn’t really a good reason for The Bourne Supremacy to exist, narratively speaking, and so I can’t really qualify it as a “good” film per se, or talk substantively about the ideas that are actually present in the film. I can talk about what I suspect Greengrass wanted to do, though, because if he had accomplished it, the film would’ve had enough muster to legitimate itself.
What I suspect Greengrass wanted to do in The Bourne Supremacy was to treat seriously the idea that violence, something that is commonplace and typically taken for granted in film (especially American film), has consequence in the lives of individuals. I base this argument partially on the rest of Greengrass’ oeuvre, which has, in one way or another, dealt more transparently with this idea. I think particularly about the scene at the conclusion of Captain Phillips, in which Tom Hanks’ character suffers physical shock from the violence and terror that has occurred around him over the course of the film. This scene is powerful because it shows something film typically doesn’t - a character dealing with the aftermath of what is, in the grand scheme of film history, relatively minor violence.
There is a somewhat similar scene in the conclusion of Bourne 2. Here, Damon’s Bourne apologizes for the assassination of a Russian politician and his wife to their orphaned daughter. We watch her grieve over the deaths of characters that are, in light of the entire narrative of the Bourne films, more-or-less insignificant. We, the viewers, are supposed to think seriously about the cost of death and carnage, and perhaps even the effect of our fetishization of it in film.
The problem is we don’t. Instead, we think back to the obnoxiously long car chase we just endured, or the fist-fight in the chic European apartment, or the snipering of Marie, a character we do in fact care about but find it hard to believe Bourne does. This is what happens when you situate an emotionally-potent scene in an otherwise standard-operation action film, which is ultimately what Bourne 2 is. Greengrass thinks, I think, that the “shaky cam” changes this, and I see why he would think so. The camera movements, particularly in the action scenes, are designed to make the viewer feel as if they are physically a part of what is happening on-screen. The cinematography is definitely effective, but it doesn’t quite take the viewer where Greengrass intends. The result is a movie that, as you point out, is nice to look at, but doesn’t, in execution, have anything new or interesting to say, especially when compared to its originating counterpart.
Hopefully “Bourne 3: Bourne Again, Again” succeeds where this one doesn’t.
Given its reputation as one of the better sequels out there, and given its director Paul Greengrass’s pedigree, I'm surprised to say I liked The Bourne Supremacy rather less than its predecessor.
The Bourne Supremacy feels like it spent a lot of time on the explication of its plot and on the choreography of action sequences (some of which are, admittedly, nifty) without bothering to build on any of the ideas from the previous film. This isn’t to say that The Bourne Identity was perfect—Bourne’s moral about-face was awfully convenient, as you noted in your review—but it had an absurdist take on the typical spy premise and a political acuity that set it apart from other Hollywood run-shoot-fight exercises.
The weaknesses in Identity should have given Supremacy room to expand and flesh itself out. Mostly, though, Jason Bourne runs around, reacts—albeit stoically—to assorted bits of bad news, and blows up a house for good measure. In between is the fallout from the assassination of a Russian reformer which could have had contemporary relevance if the movie had any more sophisticated an attitude about it than IT WAS BAD. The first movie understood that international powers interact with each other in complicated ways, guided variously by national self-interest, moral necessity, and just plain bureaucratic incompetence. For example, it implicitly asked, is it ever justified to eliminate a foreign dictator—for political or moral reasons? This movie, while it gets the bureaucratic inefficiency right, seems to think that political snafus can be probably traced to the mercenary impulses of a few crooked officials.
Also disappointing is the treatment of Bourne’s girlfriend Marie, a holdover from the last movie who is quickly dispatched in Supremacy’s first act. Sure, Bourne sheds a few obligatory tears for her, but it’s pretty clear that the movie is primarily interested in 1) drumming up some easy sympathy for Bourne, and 2) streamlining the narrative so that Bourne can conquer bad guys without having to drag along any Franka Potente-sized baggage.
All that said, there’s a lot to appreciate in this movie, especially the acting, which is something I don’t always feel generous enough toward actors to comment on. Special kudos go to Matt Damon and Brian Cox for bringing commitment, professionalism, and verisimilitude to roles which otherwise could have been expensive filler. Damon embodies a basic decency that is essential to grounding the film in some emotional reality, even when he’s bouncing around Eastern European streets riddled with bullets. Cox, meanwhile, shades his performance with a weary pathos that makes his character seem like more than just a stock villain. With his fraying hair and eyebrows that look permanently furrowed, he’s the corrupt cop and the thirty-year lifer with one more to go before retirement, all rolled up into one. Joan Allen, whom I usually enjoy, fares less well, relegated as she is to barking generic boss lady orders like, “If you want to go home, FIND JASON BOURNE!”
Also, there are those previously mentioned nifty action sequences that are in fact pretty nifty, serving to more or less justify, as they say, the price of admission. My favorite is a loopy little getaway involving a boat, a crowbar, a bridge, and a train. There’s also a hand-to-hand fight sequence that fulfills this movie’s quota for the fetishized destruction of stylishly chilly European interior design. The climactic car chase, however, runs far too long and monotonously.
All told, I’m still looking forward to The Bourne Ultimatum, which will hopefully not wear out my tolerance for shaky-cam.
After a little hiatus (road trip, wedding planning, Star Trek), I’m back—as inevitable as a big budget remake of a familiar property. Speaking of which, let’s jump right in.
You point out, in your comparison of the two super-spies, that both James Bond and Jason Bourne subvert certain cultural assumptions about Brits and Americans. I think you’re right on about that. But it’s also worth keeping in mind the ways both characters embody values and concerns specific to their respective cultural contexts.
Bond’s confidence does make him seem like a deviation from the norm of diffident British men, but he also makes perfect sense as a champion of Anglo-Saxon tradition and structure. For example, look at all that goes unquestioned by the Bond franchise: the entitlements of masculinity, the moral and national imperative to preempt acts of terrorism abroad, the good intentions of a political organization like MI6. Even Skyfall, which went about as far as any Bond film in challenging the basic premise of the series, still characterizes the MI6 organization and leadership as essentially supportive, reliable, and just (Javier Bardem's villain may have felt wronged by MI6, but he was also totally crazy-pants and arguably deserving of his fate). This faith in—or at least acceptance of—structures is perhaps to be expected from a nation still in possession of a monarchy.
It’s also possible to look at James Bond the character as a symbol for Britain itself. Bond always pretty much knows who he is, even though he has beendozens of times by a half dozen different actors. There is an underlying consistency that is ultimately comforting, even when it involves a bevy of institutionalized horrors like alcoholism and casual misogyny. (Because a good Brit knows what serving the Empire calls for: a stiff upper lip, a stiff drink, and a stiff—well….)
I don’t mean to get sidetracked talking about James Bond, but 1) you started it, 2) I do want to establish critical perimeters within which to begin talking about our current film. What does it say that in 2002, America produced, of all things, an existential spy thriller? Unlike calm, cool, collected James Bond, Jason Bourne doesn’t have a clue who he is, and most of what he discovers alarms him. As you discussed in your review, Bourne’s gradual uncovering of his past can be read as a metaphor for personal psychological discovery. But it can also be interpreted allegorically through the lens of recent American political history.
It’s a coincidence that The Bourne Identity came out right after the September 11 attacks and just before the ensuing Iraq War. The prescience of the film's warning not to meddle in the affairs of other countries owes everything to its awareness of history, to the fact that foreign entanglements have been a recurrent theme in American politics. When director Doug Liman set out to adapt the original novel, he wasn’t thinking of Saddam Hussein; he was inspired by the Iran-Contra affair, which his own father was involved with investigating.
The Bourne Identity’s disgust at the duplicity and callousness of organizations comes out of an American temperament that has bred, time and again, an individualistic dissatisfaction with institutions. Bourne, in this sense, is the ultimate individualist—striking out on his own, frontiersman-style, guided only by his intuition, skills, and conscience. Even more specifically, the movie’s vision of America is influenced by the scandals and mounting disillusionments that have marked late 20th century American politics, from Vietnam to Watergate to Monica Lewinsky. The true villain of The Bourne Identity isn’t the dictator Bourne was originally assigned to kill; it’s the shady CIA program that ordered the hit. Bourne’s America is one continuously in the process of figuring itself out, only to be horrified by what it learns about itself.
Funny, there’s enough to discuss about the ideas in the movie that I haven’t even really begun to talk about how I responded to actual scenes, which OMG REMEMBER WHEN MATT DAMON JUMPED DOWN THAT STAIRWELL AND TOTALLY SHOT THAT DUDE ON THE WAY DOWN OMG.
And now for something completely different. We chose to follow up the sappy, emotionally scatter-brained P.S. I Love You with the dour, gray-scale The Bourne Identity. I like this movie, but with caveats.
In some respects, the Bourne films play out as the anti-Bond; while Bond is playful, Bourne is intense; while Bond is confident and brash, Bourne is reluctant and measured. I ultimately prefer Bourne’s style of spy action - his please-don’t-mess-with-me-now-I’m-going-to-kill-you thing makes the violence somehow feel more justified. This dichotomy, between Bond and Bourne, is particularly fun because of the way it makes us think about national stereotypes. Bond, the Brit (who should be tepid), is the brazen one, whereas Bourne, the American (who should be ballsy and crude), is cautious.
This is maybe worth thinking about because Bourne’s creator, Robert Ludlum, was an American, as are the film’s director (Doug Liman) and screenwriters (Tony Gilroy and William Blake Heron). This film, and its sequels, feel very much to me like an American version of a European thriller. Or, put another way, this is an action-packed, car-chase filled version of something like Le Cercle Rouge, The Day of the Jackal, or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It is perhaps unfair to blame this solely on the nationality of its creators, but my impression remains: this is an American action film putting on the act of having European cinematic sensibilities. For an example, I would direct you to the scene in which Bourne, quietly assessing his options at a lonely French farmhouse, decides to evade his sniper by blowing up a gas generator.
I don’t mean to sound too negative about the style of the film, because ultimately it works for me. I enjoy seeing a fireball just as much as the next guy.
Far more interesting in this film is its take on knowledge and ethics. This movie seems to be straining for most of its runtime at allegorizing the Platonic doctrine of recollection. According to Plato in his dialogue Meno, “We do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection.” In other words, people don’t actually learn anything new, they simply figure out things they already knew, probably, Plato thought, from a past life. Plato understood this to work for virtue too - one couldn’t learn to be virtuous, you simply had to locate the virtue already locked into you. Plato understood that some people would naturally have more than others.
Insert Bourne (or “born.” Get what they did there?). Bourne spends the entire movie learning things about himself that he ultimately already knows. In the conclusion of the film, he is told/remembers that he messed up on his final mission, and, rather than assassinate an African politician like he was supposed to, he chose to be merciful. This occurs, we (and Bourne) find out, because his conscience awoke and thought it might be a bad idea to ruthlessly murder a father in front of his children.
Speaking in terms of strict allegory, this works. Bourne not only learns that he has all sorts of super-spy abilities, he also learns that he has some sort of ethical awareness. This is not something he accrues through education, this is something inherent to his person. As a viewer, this introduces a tremendous problem, however. Why on earth would Bourne’s conscience kick in right at that exact moment? Prior to his amnesia, he was, presumably, a highly successful assassin. Why did his sense of right and wrong kick in then, and not sometime earlier in his life? Say, when he signed up to be a gun-for-hire in the first place? Or when he made his first kill? The film doesn’t offer any sort of explanation, and this feels a bit like cheating. Of course, Plato didn’t offer much of one either, and so perhaps this is just in keeping with the formula. It still bothers me though, more than anything else in the film. Maybe the sequels will clear this up.
Mazel Tov indeed. Like you, I also hated this movie. Unlike you, I don’t feel like I’ve been robbed of any right to righteous anger. On the contrary, it is exactly a film like P.S. I Love You that warrants a very particular form of aggravation.
You noted that P.S. I Love You is clearly the work of a human mind and couldn’t possibly have been assembled to further corporate interests. I totally agree, and it is because of this that the movie becomes irritating. Because someone (Richard LaGravenese) made choice after choice after choice, thinking, I presume, that he was saying something worth saying. Something, I presume, about the way relationships work. Or the way grief happens. Or the way people move on after hardship. Instead of accomplishing this in any way, shape or form, LaGravenese has produced a film about narcissists wearing hats.
The hats in the film are quite nice, by the way. P.S. I Love You is credited by some in the fashion world with popularizing the Cloche hat. To quote Morgan Cullen of Runway Daily, “What I do want to do here is point out here is [sic] Swank’s UBER cute head-wear throughout the entire movie.”
Hats aside, the infantile self-involvement of the characters, particularly Swank’s Holly, becomes difficult to watch after only a few minutes of screen time. The film opens with Holly frustrated with husband Gerry (Gerard Butler) because he mentioned to her mother that she wasn’t ready to have children. The problems with this scene are numerous. To begin with, it is in no way endearing that she is furious with him for saying something that, it becomes clear, she in no way indicated she didn’t want him to say. She’s just upset to be upset. Gerry, rather that attempting genuine communication with his wife, eggs her on and antagonizes her, fueling her distemper. It quickly becomes apparent that he, too, has the emotional capacities of an elementary-aged child. The film implies that via this scene, the first and most important time we see Holly and Gerry alive together, we are supposed to somehow intuit the depth of their love for each other.
Instead I intuited that: A. Holly and Gerry need couple’s counseling, and B. Writer/Director LaGravenese doesn’t understand how feelings work.
The emotional tone-deafness of the film carries on from this point, and the viewer is treated to a slew of scenes that don’t feel quite right. We get to see a funeral wake in which everyone is laughing, smiling, and having a good time. We see Holly embark on a faux-romance with the quasi-autistic Harry Connick, Jr., and are encouraged to think this is cute. Most disturbingly, she has a one-night-stand with husband doppelgänger and (surprise!) husband’s childhood friend William (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). This is supposed to be romantic. The movie’s overall out-of-stepness with anything remotely human makes it the source of well-deserved frustration. This is, after all, a work of art, made by a real human being. A human being, it should be noted, who has committed his life to creating art, and has occasionally done so with aplomb (as you mentioned, The Fisher King and A Little Princess). To see something come from the same creative mind, but fall so tremendously far from those marks, is maddening.
