Character Study: Jason Bourne

Character Study: Jason Bourne | Perspective | Jason Bourne (2002 - 2016)

Almost everyone on planet Earth knows how much I'm obsessed about him. I've been living reenacting his complete personality, thereby sustaining injuries since 2002. If permitted, I'd alter my identity to his even in the gazette. After all, my pseudo name is his.

He is a patriotic and an extremely intelligent agent, who signs up in a secret program to eliminate threats originating outside of the homeland. He loses his memory in an accident while carrying out a covert mission. When he gradually regains his memory, he learns that not only did he remove targets external of his country, but internal, which isn't what he actually volunteered for.

2016:
Jason Bourne remains invincible and unprecedented, with perfect back stories relating to all the events of his past. The revenge saga, does not appear to be concluding, more sequels to be followed.

Even though, Paul Greengrass (director), perfectly ended the franchise with ' The Bourne Ultimatum' (2007), he had also left vital clues that Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) might be reinstated. After a heist of 9 years, Bourne emerges as a bare - knuckle fighter in the border of Greece.

Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), the former logistics support for Treadstone program, was terminated from CIA for being linked to Jason Bourne and aiding him in exposing black ops, Treadstone and Blackbriar ( Do recall your memory of Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Identity). Since then, she has been hiding, and hunting opportunities to expose the rogue operations.

In meantime, the social media giant ' Deep Dream' becomes ubiquitous in the digital lives of the significant population of the world. The founder of the start up, Aaron Kallor(Riz Ahmed) is obligated to the deputy director of CIA, Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones) for full wide - spectrum surveillance of people's digital footprints as his company was seed funded by the agency. Aaron is determined in protecting people's privacy. And, what the agency demands him to do is against the privacy policies of Deep Dream. How does he cope up? [ Several references are made to Edward Snowden's whistleblowing]

The head of cyber divisions, Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), partially defeats Nicky Parsons's attempt in infiltrating into the firewall of CIA's mainframe and stealing the black ops files, including Iron Hand (A Treadstone upgrade - full spectrum surveillance). Bourne is given access to data stolen by Nicky Parsons in the midst of Greek protest crowd, which leads to unraveling the fact of paramount importance, (that was the motivation for Bourne to volunteer for Treadstone), that his father, Richard Webb, was not murdered by enemies, but by the agency. Bourne wants to find the perpetrators. He falls back in the grid again, revealing the answers, shrouded in mystery.

Heather Lee, studies Bourne's files, and learns from his behavioral observations that Bourne is always patriotic, when played right, he can be brought back into the agency. The asset (Vincent Cassel) desperately wants to avenge Bourne, as he was caught in Syria for espionage and tortured by the exposure of Blackbriar by Bourne. Heather Lee plans to bring Bourne back to agency by helping him in finding the truth.

The last 90 minutes is a culmination of brutal combat, and high speed pursuit between the agency's asset backed by Robert and Bourne, in preventing Bourne from exposing Iron Hand program, and understanding about Bourne's father's murder. Eventually, Jason Bourne triumphs and leaves impression again that he would return. The whistleblowing attempt of Aaron, appears to be subtly managed by Heather Lee, in favour of agency. Perhaps, it is saved for subsequent installments of the franchise.

Filmmaker, Paul Greengrass was a former international journalist, and adept in seamlessly incorporating the alarming sociopolitical challenges in his films, esp, in Bourne franchise. Jason Bourne is no exception, as the pivotal plot of this installment is loosely based on Edward Snowden. Jason Bourne franchise is synonymous with hyper, fast edited, massive action sequences. Special mention to the academy award winning editor (for Bourne Ultimatum) and co-writer, Christopher Rouse for bringing actions as authentic as possible and captivating on the screen. The Greek protest and Las Vegas car chase sequences quench the thirst for Jason Bourne admirers.

Addendum:

Jason's Bourne is a fictional CIA field agent, who is framed into a special assignment as an assassin for eliminating targets who have conflicting interests. During a particular mission, he declines to assassinate a diplomat, consequently, he gets shot by the guards and disappears. He is then found and rescued somewhere in the European waters by fishermen. He does not remember his identity. He traces back his origins and founds that he is sort of persuaded to kill targets. And, then he starts following the leads and kills those responsible. Jason Bourne is a fictional character originally written by Robert Ludlum for his novel by the same name. Subsequently, his works were adapted into feature films.That's the brief introduction about the character and events happening in the Bourne Trilogy, The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007).

Matt Damon played as Jason Bourne and he was phenomenal. The first part of the installment was directed by Doug Liman, and the last two series were by one of my most favorite directors Paul Greengrass.

I was captivated by Matt Damon as Jason Borune. His moves, body language, motorcycle and car driving expertise, being nimble, sensitive of the environment, ability to quickly understand the threats and find a way to evade them, meticulous in thinking and execution, physical stamina. All of it made me obsessed with the character. In effect, I became Jason Bourne in my real life either. I enacted the character, I moved, talked, behaved, drove, ran, thought, actioned like Jason Bourne. My colleagues started calling me as Jason Bourne. Yes, that's another pseudo name of mine. In this process I sustained minor bruises and injuries.

Now, I'm delighted because Matt Damon had reprised the role of Jason Bourne and Paul Greengrass has come back to direct the 5th installment of the series, titled Bourne 5/Jason Bourne.

They should have left him alone! 

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This character study or perspective is not comprehensive as there will addendums from Bourne Identity (2002), Bourne Supremacy (2004) and Bourne Ultimatum (2007) in the near future.

My DVD cover of Bourne Ultimatum, which I bought in 2008


Yet another feature, which manipulated my conscience. Consequently, I attempted to apply to the CIA, which did not happen for certain. However, I reenacted Jason Bourne in my own reality or in my universe, where the place for the ordinary is non existent. I imagined being pursued by assets (assassins) and drove the car and bike like Bourne maneuvered. Also, in every possible I could enact the character.

Every night after enduring the day's battle, on my way to the shelter, now, I'm listening to the track "Extreme Ways" by Moby for Jason Bourne series. And, the Bourne in me is resurrected and I'm rejuvenated. However, the battle continues tomorrow and  the defeat is inevitable.

 

Check out Extreme Ways (From The "Bourne" Film Series) by Moby on Amazon Music
https://music.amazon.in/albums/B08LKTNGDC?trackAsin=B08LKGBTB9&ref=dm_sh_I8SxdhKgx3SskMF2eTlz2sGCk

The article is about: 
Jason Bourne, Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Julia Stiles, Vincent Cassel, Christopher Rouse, Balaji Thangapandian (BT) , Film Theorist, Character Study, Character Study of Jason Bourne, Movies, Movie Review

AUTHORED BY
Balaji Thangapandian aka #BT,  a #filmtheorist
A spacefarer, who is also curious about film-making, connectivity technologies and military history.

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