[Marxism] Bourne vs. Bond (Socialist Worker on the Bourne Ultimatum)

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Though I had not seen the preceding two pictures, I caught this 
on the day it opened. It's kind of an anti-spy thriller and while
I'm not a big fan of this genre, it had such a powerful anti-CIA 
message, I meant to write about it at the time. Well, better late 
than never. Don't know whatever happened with the planned filming 
of Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States which we'd 
been told Matt Damon was involved in. It would have been a great 
project had it gotten off the ground. I don't expect much in the 
way of a political effect from movies, beyond ones like SiCKO and 
Fahrenheit 9/11, which make a generalized contribution to public 
political consciousness. SiCKO is part of a political movement to 
generate health-care reform in the US. The main thing which this 
well-made thriller does indicate is that there's a market for a 
movie with so strident a message of hostility toward everything 
which the Central Intelligence Agency ultimately represents. 
An earlier movie which also was anti-CIA, THE GOOD SHEPHERD, 
bombed at the box office, because it flopped as entertainment, 
at least for me.

The idea of the guilt-ridden assassin is a powerful one and can 
be the basis of fine movies, like the Israeli WALK ON WATER.


Walter Lippmann
Los Angeles, California
================================================================

SOCIALIST WORKER
LEFT EYE ON FILM 
Bourne vs. Bond

September 7, 2007 | Page 11

JOE ALLEN and PAUL D'AMATO compare two very different movie spy
heroes.

THE BOURNE Ultimatum grossed $70 million on its opening weekend in
early August, surpassing the revenues of the opening weekends of
first two Bourne films, The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy.
This has led to speculation that the Bourne films may supplant the
long-running James Bond series as Hollywood's most popular spy-movie
franchise.

What is the appeal of Jason Bourne over James Bond? "Bond is
fundamentally different from Bourne," says Matt Damon, who plays
Bourne. "Bond is an establishment guy. He is a misogynist, an
imperialist, he's all the things that Bourne isn't. He kills people
then drinks a Martini." Damon adds, "By the end of the second Bourne
movie Jason is apologizing for killing people. I've never seen that
in a big Hollywood movie before."

------------------

Not since The French Connection (1971) and Bullitt (1968) have car
chases been so thrilling. Bourne is forced to constantly run (and
fight) because his employers have decided that he is a liability and
must be killed. Through the three films, Bourne discovers that he is
a specially trained CIA assassin who has killed a large number of
people for reasons that he doesn't understand.

As his memories begin to surface, he is wracked with guilt and pain
over his actions. He can only overcome the psychological torture that
turned him into a killer when he finds and confronts the people who
did this to him. In short, Jason Bourne is not a spy, he's an
anti-spy.

FULL:
http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-2/643/643_11_BourneBond.shtml


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