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THE BOURNE IDENTITY by Tom McCurrie
What's the difference between Mystery and Suspense? Well, Mystery is when
the audience is clueless, while Suspense is when the protagonist is
clueless.
Hitchcock preferred Suspense big time. He always told that story about
two characters in a room with a ticking bomb. If the audience didn't know
about the bomb and it went off, there was some shock and that was it. But
if the audience knew about the bomb and the characters didn't, there was
more tension than people could handle -- they screamed at the characters
to get out before they were blown to bits. Talk about audience
participation!
Written by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, and based on the novel by
Robert Ludlum, THE BOURNE IDENTITY goes the Hitchcock route and chooses
Suspense over Mystery. Unfortunately, imitating Hitchcock and duplicating
his success are two entirely different things.
(Warning: Spoilers Ahead!)
THE BOURNE IDENTITY is about an amnesiac chased from one end of Europe to
the other. Although Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) doesn't know why he's
Public Enemy No. 1, we do. It's made clear early on that the CIA wants to
waste him for botching a hit. You see, Bourne is a killer and doesn't
even know it.
OK, that's all well and good premise wise. But since we're hip to
Bourne's past way before he is, we end up waiting the entire movie for him
to find out what we already know. We're not worried over whether he'll
discover his true identity in time; we're annoyed with him for not
figuring it out sooner. This not only kills Suspense -- it kills Audience
Identification.
So where's the disconnect with the Hitchcock story? It all comes down to
length. Hitchcock's characters are unaware of important information (the
bomb) for a few minutes at best; Bourne is unaware of his true identity
for over two-thirds of the movie. Whether the writer likes it or not, a
protagonist this dense is almost impossible to root for. After all, if it
took Hitchcock's characters two hours to figure out a bomb was in the
room, you'd want them blown to bits.
Undermining Suspense even further is the fact that Bourne is practically
indestructible. Whether it's scaling bare walls like Spiderman, evading
every cop in Paris or beating up men twice his size (often several at a
time), Bourne polishes off the bad guys so easily we don't fear for him at
all. In fact, we almost feel sorry for the villains for having their
lights punched out again and again. With Bourne's victory all but
guaranteed, the audience soon ceases to worry -- or care -- about his
welfare.
At this point, any Suspense left is weak and ineffective. But even that's
deep-sixed by the lack of twists and turns. The only major revelation
comes at the very end when we discover why Bourne botched his mission --
he didn't want to kill his target in front of the kiddies. And this guy
is supposed to be a highly-trained CIA operative? Oh, Pa-leeeze! This is
one "bombshell" that's too silly to believe.
So what's the lesson? When you make your character forget the past, don't
forget the Suspense along with it.
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to
gillis662000@yahoo.com.
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked
as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a
screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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