I find it hard to argue with Reihan's logic.
« Farewell And Adieu To You Fair Spanish Ladies | Main | Everybody Runs » Jason Bourne, Ingrate09 Aug 2007 08:19 am Comments (11)
Albert Finney is morally culpable, sure, but so is Matt Damon. 1) Damon volunteers for the project knowing that he is volunteering to have his identity removed in order to better protect US interests (as defined by the CIA). That act -- surrendering his ability to make ethical decisions -- is fundamentally guilty. After that, Damon is like the guy who defends a charge of date r*pe by saying "I was drunk." Sure, but whose decision was it to get so drunk that you couldn't make your own ethical decisions? 4) Bourne has met the enemy, and it isn't just "us" in the generic sense that the US government is a massive threat, and foriegn enemies are none at all, it's "us" in the most personal sense -- that Bourne himself was responsible for everything that happens. Up to now, Damon's Bourne has been blaming the CIA for who he *is*, using it as a cloak for the emotionless, narcissistic brutality that has become his major personality trait. Going forward, does he try to forge a new, more admirable identity or does he sink deeper into revenge and resentment? As I said, there's room for a good movie, although I doubt that the current team can make it. 
Well, nevermind the fact that every scene involving the CIA was one giant cliche, they have Webb shoot a man in cold blood in that room. I think he might have gotten the hint after that that things weren't going to be "humane." Yet he stuck with it. He has himself to blame as much as the CIA. Also, I don't think CIA wiped his memory, did they? He lost his memory sometime in between his failed assassination attempt on Wombosi and when he was found by the fishermen in the beginning of Identity.
The fact that you once signed on to do something bad doesn't mean that you're unjustified in changing your mind. In fact, it means that you're even more responsible for changing your mind. Bourne did the only responsible thing - he brought down the program. Maybe Bourne should have turned himself in, too, to pay for the crimes he committed, but that seems like a relatively complex and relatively minor part of the ethics of the movie. Treadstone and Blackbriar were evil. Webb signed up for it, making an evil choice. As post-amnesia Bourne, he tried to bring them down. How are the actions of post-amnesia Bourne problematized? (You can also talk about him killing people to get to Treadstone, and the movie is a little titchy on that, but it has nothing to do with hte fact that Webb volunteered.)
The problem is when Liman ignored the source material; Robert Ludlum's own narrative. The
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When "Webb" volunteers isn't there some reasonable expectation of humanity in the methods and desired ends of the CIA unit he has surrendered his life to? He volunteers to "save American lives" and the point that Greengrass and the script writer seem to drive at is the disconnect between this aspiration and the reality of the operations the now-Bourne was involved in. There seems to be a hearty disconnect. The semi-rogue CIA operation, Blackbriar, has targeted and killed, in some cases, Americans. And in Bourne's training we’re shown a scene where he is, many hours awake, convinced by the CIA psychiatrist/trainer to shoot a hooded apparent American.
Who is he? What has he done? Bourne asks.
It doesn’t matter? the psychiatrist says.
Bourne signed on to "save American lives." It's unclear this is what he did. Also it's not apparent to me that surrendering one's dog tags is tantamount to agreeing to have your identity and memories washed away, basic humanity destroyed.
In essence, the Bourne movies are all driven by the character's desire to rediscover his identity as an individual and a human. Yes, he volunteered but should he have expected what he got? I'm not sure. I certainly wouldn’t call him an ingrate.
It’s sort of like arguing that someone who volunteered for Vietnam should have been expecting to take part in the My Lai Massacre.
Posted by Jon | August 9, 2007 9:21 AM