Bond and Bourne are really the same

Daniel Craig Matt Damon

One thing that could be seen as a cursing or a blessing is the ability to watch movies while editing photos. I’ve never watched so many movies is so short of a time. Typically I will watch the same movie for about a week or so. I do this so that I can look and study the nuances of the movie and find little easter eggs that the director has put out there. That’s what makes wedding photography so great, the nuance of the bride and groom and their love. Anyways, back to my topic.

A few years back I was photographing a radio producers conference in which a speaker was educated the audience about the change in culture, particularly with movies. He stated that gone are the days of Bond who was very clean cut and polished. Our heroes we going to be more dirty and not have their lives so much together as Bond seemed to have. Everything was given to Bond. He didn’t have to work all the time for his nice cars or his lady friends. He was just given to him.

Bourne on the other hand wasn’t given anything that he didn’t work for himself. He woke up one day like a child and didn’t know who he was or even who he wanted to be. He was like a child because children just wake up one day and have to figure this world out. They are given talents and abilities and have to learn how to use them. Bourne was this way. He woke up and through circumstances he begins to understand that he is a trained assassin and is determined to find out where this all started.

I found this blog and full report that talks about the difference between the two.

The Bourne Ultimatum’ star thinks Bond is old fashioned and says his own character, former CIA assassin Jason Bourne, is a superior modern day action hero.

Damon said: “Bond is fundamentally different from 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.”

“The director of ‘The Bourne Identity’, Doug Liman, said to me before we started the first one, ‘James Bond does not speak to me at any level and I think it would be cool to have a James Bond that people our age can relate to.’ Bond is a character left over from the 1960s.

Also take a look at this blog about the difference between Bond and Bourne

It is true that there is a marked difference in the cinematography between the feel of Bourne and the 1960’s Bond. While reading these statements it occured to me some points of interest.

• Bourne is attempting to find out who he is. Bond already knows who he is and what he is about.
• Bourne’s government is bad who attempts to kill innocent people if need be while Bond is the reflection of a government that acts in the best interest of the United States.
• Bond’s world wasn’t as violent and raw. Violence was mostly assumed through assumption and sound. Bourne’s violence is put out in the open for everyone to experience through Bourne’s eyes.

It seems that most would prefer Bourne’s look because it represents today. During the 60’s violence on TV isn’t as accepted and encouraged as it is today. We expect overt violence in action movies because we want sensory over load. We want to empathize with those that we associate ourselves with. We like Bourne because he is a man trying to find his way in this world and in the end is successful. No matter what happens Bourne always comes through.

But Bond and Bourne are really the same in principle but different in time:

• Bond held the ideals of the day about the good of the government.
• Bourne was created by the system for evil and now must use that training against the system.
• Bond was the everyman of his time. People and families wanted to live the “good life with good things”
• Bourne was the everyman in that people want to be seen as overcoming their situation through their wits.
• Bond didn’t have complex fighting scenes because they didn’t exist.
• Bourne has complex fighting scenes because they have been around for a while.

What we want to see are the personal struggles that they have. We want to know that they are feeling what we are feeling and are they going through what I am going through. No matter what your social economical status is in this world you have demons you are fighting.

I think the idea of identity is something that I might what to look into later. What do you think about my assessment.

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