Paul Greengrass is the god of Bourne.
By happy coincidence, the tiny cinema up here in Mammoth actually kicked out one of its two running movies for The Bourne Ultimatum.
Of course, like the wind, I snatched a matinee viewing. And. I am going to start posing ultimatums myself here. ( Does a smarter action movie exist? No spoilers. )
Of course, like the wind, I snatched a matinee viewing. And. I am going to start posing ultimatums myself here. ( Does a smarter action movie exist? No spoilers. )
With the budget Ultimatum must have had, Greengrass could've sprung for even one Steadicam. Hell, he could've put the camera on a chair or something. You could easily film a conversation between two people or a zoom-in/zoom-out long shot while resting the camera on a chair or table.
I can understand how the "POV" camera-work breaks down for you during dialogue sequences - but the fact that Greengrass deliberately chose not to use static shots there (when as you pointed out, he had every option to) further convinces me that there's a reason behind his madness. For one thing, I suspect it might have been too jarring of a style-break - to have random steadicam shots in the middle of this incredibly organic, "organized mess" type of framing. Also, I think the way he filmed conversations was in keeping with the whole feeling of unease that pervades the calm moments. The disquiet between two people.
In the books, Bourne could do all that stuff, but most of his reputation was staked on the skill that earned him the nickname "the chameleon."
Ah, now that would have been interesting to expound upon. I agree that this was one of the strongest aspects of Ludlum's Bourne, and it definitely would have given the films a different pace and flavor. For the most part, however (and I realize how much of a heretic this makes me sound - apologies in advance!), I find the films more graceful and streamlined than the books, which makes me prefer them; even Jason himself is stripped down to his essence. But instead of suffering as a character, he remains flesh-and-blood and three-dimensional. Which is perhaps the most impressive (and, I'd argue, damn near poetic) feat these movies accomplish.
Ultimately, I think the franchise had a choice between two extremes. It took one tack, and ran with it. A different approach might've been just as fantastic, but I certainly dig what we got. :)
Shifting into fanwank mode for a moment: the fact that he hasn't had a wardrobe change since Marie died strikes me as rather symbolic. Y'know, black as the color of mourning, and all that. He hasn't been able to stop and catch a break since she died, but that's partly due to his own stubborn will - he won't relent until he has the truth.
JASON BOURNE HEARTS MARIE HELENA KREUTZ 4EVER HA!
YES. WIN. I loved that she was still such a presence in the film - still the source of Bourne's drive to find answers. And that all the mirrored moments (cafeteria, hair cut/dye) don't bring him closer to Nicky, but drive him away. Beautiful contrast.
Ack, and the scene between him and Marie's brother... so sad. She's not just the collateral that pains him the most, but (I think) his quintessential reminder of all the people who've lost their lives as a result of either himself, or Treadstone/Blackbriar's brutality.
I hate that I'm not gonna get to see this movie again till Wednesday or later. Growl.
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And that all the mirrored moments (cafeteria, hair cut/dye) don't bring him closer to Nicky, but drive him away. Beautiful contrast.
I am a mean, petty fangirl, I admit it freely. My inner shipper just pointed out that the bar Jason and Marie were in during Identity was a heck of a lot classier than the hole-in-a-wall diner he took Nicky to. That place was downright trashy. Good to know our hero had is priorities in order, eh?
The haircut scene just made me want to cry. As soon as Nicky looked up and Bourne saw the short black hair, you could just see his heart breaking all over again.
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*deep breath*
the fact that he hasn't had a wardrobe change since Marie died strikes me as rather symbolic. Y'know, black as the color of mourning, and all that.
I hadn't thought of that, and I see what you mean, but I don't see Bourne as a person whose Treadstone-ingrained instincts would let him do anything that would detract from his survival/completion of the mission no matter how symbolic it was. Wearing all black just means that he'd be easier to spot by surveillance cameras, snipers, or tailing agents. Book-Bourne wore all-black on occasion, but only when he was operating at night - in other words, whatever helped him blend into his surroundings, be it secret agent couture or civilian drab. Maybe that's why I'm nitpicking at this point - I'm trying to reconcile bookverse and movieverse.
Completely immaterial to my opinion, of course, is that Matt looks great with color. *g* He wore even that moth-eaten orange sweater quite stylishly...okay, so he looks awesome in black too. Shut up.
Ultimately, I think the franchise had a choice between two extremes. It took one tack, and ran with it.
I guess Greengrass did, but I don't think the two "extremes" are so impossible to combine. Identity did it, where Bourne had to go in not even knowing who he was supposed to be and improvise whatever identity people were acknowledging him as, like in the bank and the shipping company. And Liman still had plenty of action sequences. Maybe Bourne had to play different bluffing games once his opponent was the CIA, but I don't think it could've been that hard for the screenwriters to try to show that Bourne was able to fight and go underground and knew when to do either. Instead, it was just him fighting and his version of disappearing was running away really really fast. To me, that kind of flash-bang physicality, no matter how masterful, doesn't really prove the claim that Bourne was some kind of master assassin able to kill people and have no one the wiser that it was even an assassination. Even if he didn't assassinate people anymore, I thought he should still retain those skills and employ them to play an effective cat-and-mouse game with the CIA.
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This is a fair point (all of yours are). But ultimately, at this point, I think Bourne really doesn't care so much if he's spotted. He's the hunter in Supremacy and Ultimatum; it's his way of drawing the opponent out, forcing them into play. He's confident and quick enough to avoid them when he needs to, but in my eyes his refusal to overcompensate (with wardrobe/name changes, and the like) is one big middle finger to the operatives trying to take him down. Kind of a "come and get me!" if you will. Of course, there's always the probability that I'm reading too far into this... but whether it's intentional or not on the part of the filmmakers, I rely on so many of the details about movie!Jason to speak for him - seeing as he rarely does, post-Marie.
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Agreed. The Medusa business was fascinating, but at times it was like Ludlum was bombarding the reader with All Medusa All The Time, which got annoying. I liked how the movie people stripped the story down and contemporized it without losing the fundamental conflict of Bourne post-amnesia dealing with Bourne pre-amnesia even after he didn't want to be involved anymore.
which makes me prefer them;
Meh. I have a bad habit of salad bar fangirling when it comes to movie adaptations of books; I pick and choose elements from both "canon" sources until I've made a personal mythos out of the jumble. In the case of Bourne, I like the movie characters and their contemporary attitudes (plus the fact that this little universe is just stuffed with really good-looking people), but ultimately I like the way Ludlum formed his plots better. The movies did a little too much stripping down, I think, or at least Supremacy and Ultimatum did. All three movies had Bourne vs. amnesia and Bourne vs. CIA, but Identity had Marie to add variation and warmth; Supremacy had the Neski girl and Ultimatum had Marie's brother and the quiet Nicky moments, but those three scenes were mere blips as opposed to Marie's deep involvement with Identity's plot. Critics like to call the movies "relentless" all the time; they are, and Liman and Greengrass pulled off a hell of a good job doing it, but at times even I felt like the characters were machines. We hardly ever saw them "off the job," as it were, except when Bourne had lovely moments with Marie, and I thought Supremacy and Ultimatum could've done more with that. Hell, even some scenes showing Bourne sleeping would've gone a long way towards humanizing him, since we don't have the benefit of knowing his thoughts like we do in the books.
Of course, then they had to go and make Marie die (GRR!) so I guess it's a hopeless fan's dream. Oh well.
even Jason himself is stripped down to his essence. But instead of suffering as a character, he remains flesh-and-blood and three-dimensional.
I have to agree with this - bemusedly, despite how little Bourne actually speaks and despite my long rant above. Jason in Identity snagged my imagination like whoa, and I don't usually do that with flat characters.
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No worries; I do this all the time, especially with muddy canon sources (Batman, for instance). It actually surprises me that I'm so straightforward with the Bourne-verse.
We hardly ever saw them "off the job," as it were, except when Bourne had lovely moments with Marie, and I thought Supremacy and Ultimatum could've done more with that. Hell, even some scenes showing Bourne sleeping would've gone a long way towards humanizing him, since we don't have the benefit of knowing his thoughts like we do in the books.
Yes. I must admit I cling to those quiet moments in the latter films like I'm squeezing blood from a rock. They're done so well, but there's just not nearly enough of them. Identity has the advantage in this situation. Marie was such a credit to what made that film tick. While I thought it was a brave move for her to be killed off so early in Supremacy - thus launching Bourne's conflicted search for both revenge and forgiveness - her presence is sorely missed.
That said, how relieved am I the films didn't try to fill that gaping hole with another love interest? I was so frelling scared it would happen with Nicky in the third, after seeing all those pictures with them together. A friend even mentioned "you know it's gonna happen" after we saw the second film together. BLESS them for letting Bourne angst away, and staying true to the fact that he is a one-woman man. PERIOD.
Sorry, is my shipper showing?
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BLESS them for letting Bourne angst away, and staying true to the fact that he is a one-woman man. PERIOD.
Yeah, for all the flaws I've been picking at in the movies, I'm still amazed and gratified that they handled the Marie situation the way they did. The scriptwriters/director must have had some kind of genius epiphany when they were writing those Nicky scenes - dropping all those first-movie parallel references, yet instead of doing the obvious and having the two fall into each other's arms, Bourne is still devoted to his (for all intents and purposes) first love and is still mourning for her. *sigh*
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For one thing, I suspect it might have been too jarring of a style-break - to have random steadicam shots in the middle of this incredibly organic, "organized mess" type of framing.
I can see this rationale conceivably behind Greengrass's decision to go with shaky cam even during still moments, but my objections aren't so much philosophical as physical. On home movies and even TV shows, shaky cam movements can be ignored, but on a two-story movie screen it gets magnified to the point where it is seriously detracting from the viewer's absorption in the story. When I was watching Ultimatum, I was completely in the story, totally into it, until the characters sat still for a moment and the camera kept shaking, and the difficulty I had just tracking the actors' faces threw me out of the story completely. It felt almost amateurish, which might have worked if the entire Bourne series had been shot like a mockumentary or something, but it wasn't. It wasn't fly-on-the-wall, so the camera shouldn't have moved like a fly. A neurotic, fidgety fly. My point is, shaky cam works fantastically with the action scenes, but it physically messed with viewer's optic nerves during the still scenes. So consistency be damned, and anyway I don't think the audience would've noticed if he'd switched to Steadicam. In fact, they may have appreciated the break for their poor aching eyeballs after all the nonstop action.
Also, I think the way he filmed conversations was in keeping with the whole feeling of unease that pervades the calm moments. The disquiet between two people.
Good actors should be able to convey disquiet regardless. I had to look away during those scenes because the shaking was like an unbearable itch I couldn't stop, and so I missed whatever acting was going on onscreen.
Re: Bourne/Nicky
What's your take on Nicky's half-dropped hint about her and Bourne's relationship pre-amnesia or possibly pre-Treadstone?
Honestly, I don't buy it at all. I think if there were romantic feelings involved, it must've been one-sided. (So saith the Bourne/Marie shipper.)
a) Chemistry was non-existent. Or rather, the chemistry/tension where you could tell two people were attracted to each other. Nicky wasn't a slouch in the pretty department by any means, but heck, Bourne paid more attention to Landy's appearance ("You look tired.") than he did to Nicky's! With Jason and Marie, it was like you could see the attraction leaping off the screen. You could see him being drawn to her, and he smiled around her, tried to be nice and made jokes. ("Can I leave footprints?" AWWWWW.)
b) Bourne keeps coming across visual/audio triggers of memories into his past. I'm pretty confident that whenever he met someone or found something that figured strongly in his past, he had flashbacks or at least sensed that they were important to him somehow. He showed no indication of that with Nicky; as far as we know, his first memory of her is standing in the Paris safehouse while he beats up Conklin. I think if they had felt something for each other, Bourne would've sensed it as soon as they met. Instead, all she did was remind him of Marie. I like what you said about all the references to Identity driving him away from Nicky.
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Not at all! Open discussion is one of my great loves, and differing views are all the sweeter when someone presents them with tact - which you certainly do. :)
Good actors should be able to convey disquiet regardless.
This is true. And I believe they did. Perhaps Greengrass emphasizing this with his direction was overkill. But...
I had to look away during those scenes because the shaking was like an unbearable itch I couldn't stop, and so I missed whatever acting was going on onscreen.
...I think this is one case where we just had entirely different reactions - I hardly noticed the camera was shaking at all in these instances, precisely because the action had been so breakneck. I sympathize with those who got taken out of the moment, because there's nothing more frustrating ('specially when you're so engrossed otherwise). Perhaps it helped that I was sitting far back in the theater this time, when I'm usually a lot closer - who knows? All I know is it didn't even occur to me.
What's your take on Nicky's half-dropped hint about her and Bourne's relationship pre-amnesia or possibly pre-Treadstone?
Pretty much spot-on with yours! I too kept stubbornly thinking "there's no way it was mutual - at least not fully"... else it would feel just a touch too shoehorned. As you mention, none of Bourne's interactions with Nicky have triggered any memories, whereas his interactions with just about anyone else significant have.
Bourne paid more attention to Landy's appearance ("You look tired.") than he did to Nicky's! With Jason and Marie, it was like you could see the attraction leaping off the screen. You could see him being drawn to her, and he smiled around her, tried to be nice and made jokes.
Hee! He does seem to have a lot more respect for Pam Landy than he does Nicky, even though it's obvious he feels somewhat sorry that she's now forced to run as well.
But really, after spending the previous film raging to find out the truth behind Marie's death - the man is still in the stages of grief. And Nicky seems to understand that, which is refreshing.
In any case, she'd never be a candidate even post Marie-grief (if that ever happens); a former Treadstone agent? The organization responsible for his current hell? Yeah, no. Which is why Nicky is a good girl for not pushing him and letting it go. ;)
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