Twenty years ago, in the summer of 2002, The Bourne Identity forever changed what we would come to expect of action franchises. Directed by Doug Liman of Mr. & Mrs. Smith fame, the film famously follows an amnesic man caught amid a CIA conspiracy. While “Jason Bourne” attempts to put together the fragmented pieces of his identity, somebody else wants him dead - desperately.
Based on the eponymous Robert Ludlum novel, The Bourne Identity was far ahead of its time in its ability to combine elements of a fast-paced action thriller with intense psychological drama. The film was initially not so easy to get off the ground, though; after an unsuccessful TV movie was made from Ludlum’s work in 1988, Warner decided to shelve any further plans with the project for years. Liman had to fight arduously for the rights to the book, finally acquiring them in 1996, near the end of the production of his film Swingers.
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Bourne was received positively by critics, who commended its smart approach to a somewhat hackneyed genre. There were some dissenters, though, who found the film unnecessary. Regardless, the Bourne franchise today remains something of a monolith. After Identity, four other sequels have been made under various directors, even (in the case of The Bourne Legacy) trading Matt Damon as the lead. The franchise has now made over $1.5 billion at the box office.
Despite many having voiced their preference for the sequels to the original, The Bourne Identity is still the film that started it all. It’s hard to underestimate The Bourne Identity’s momentous impact on both film culture and action franchises at large.
The Complex Phenomenon of Jason Bourne
Perfect World Pictures
Who is Jason Bourne? More importantly, could he beat James Bond in a round of hand-to-hand combat? Many action movies can only afford to ask us one question or the other. The Bourne Identity prompts us to consider both, and in doing so crafts far more than just your run-of-the-mill action hero. Despite his superhuman abilities, Jason Bourne is still human at his core, just like us. His motives are not to single-handedly defeat terrorists, or stop a bomb from exploding, or court the most beautiful woman in the world - they are simply to find out who he is.
The Bourne Identity seamlessly creates not just an action character, but a human character, by not being afraid to show us Bourne’s vulnerabilities and fears. The film opens with Bourne lost at sea, barely alive, with two gunshot wounds in his back. When Bourne tries to choke one of the ship’s doctors, we see the gesture not as brute showing-off, but rather an act of pure, unadulterated panic. Bourne’s vulnerability also translates to his relationship with Marie, the German woman who helps him throughout the film. Bourne is indebted to and dependent on Marie; as opposed to vice versa - she could be nothing further from an appendage of Bourne’s machismo, like many women in action franchises turn out to be.
Because Bourne is such a unique character with many sides, it is impossible to forget him. While he could kill any attacker with a household object, he cannot recall his own birthday. As much as we fear him, we can’t help but pity him.
Panic in Real Time
Universal Pictures
Despite how much we love them, some of the most famous, revered action sequences in American cinema can be incredibly drawn-out affairs. In The Bourne Identity, Liman expertly subverts this trend of the genre in favor of clipped, short action sequences that sometimes feel as though they are over as soon as they had started. While filming, Liman even occasionally used handheld cameras to make fight scenes feel more real, and he always instructed cameramen to just “go along with the action.” In this way, viewers feel just as frenetic as Bourne always does, without ever running the risk of getting bored. Because the film’s most intense scenes are often the most jarring and quick, the stakes feel risen to a ceiling beyond reach.
We also very much get the sense that The Bourne Identity is happening in real time, or something close to it, even though the film reads nothing like Birdman. But the fact that the film sometimes feels like a longer episode of 24, where every moment counts, makes the film all the more special and invigorating under its genre umbrella. There are few action films before or since that have emulated this feeling so effectively.
Birth of the Modern Action Franchise
By 2002, the action frenzy of the ’80s and ’90s had begun to wear off. Even if Michael Bay was in the limelight, our favorite action heroes from back in the day, like Schwarzenegger and Willis, were starting to age a bit, feeding us tired performances, as opposed to explosive films. Outside of Bond, the idea of the action franchise was a relatively unexplored one. There was no MCU for us to sink our teeth into every two weeks.
The Bourne Identity solved this problem by utilizing the spy formula to perfection, along with adding its own new elements to the mix - including Matt Damon. Although the star has now become almost synonymous with the Bourne franchise, Liman initially wasn’t even considering Damon for the role. He first approached such titans as Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and even Schwarzenegger. But Damon, who then hadn’t had a hit since Good Will Hunting five years prior, became enamored with the role, and Liman ultimately gave it to him. As a result, Damon has rewarded us with a cerebral, challenging twist to all the action heroes we had been weaned on for decades.
It’s safe to say that we wouldn’t have franchises like Mission: Impossible were it not for The Bourne Identity. The film was a maverick action feature in every way, and showed us just how much we can explore about a person and their psyche while they’re being hunted by the CIA. Fear not - there are still some awesome fight scenes, involving pens and spoons, along the way.
