Favorite screenplays: The Bourne Identity part 3
So Jason Bourne has gone to a bank to find himself. It turns out, a bank is not a good place to find oneself. But he does have a name now, a whole handful of names actually, and he heads out into his mysterious new life. His first instinct is to phone himself. It must be an odd thing, to phone oneself. Logic dictates that no one can possibly answer when you phone yourself, but Jason does. Why? Does he hope he will pick up? Does he hope someone else will pick up? Or is he just looking for confirmation, that there is, in fact, someone named Jason Bourne who actually has a telephone number, one of the many societal indicators that he does, indeed, have an identity?
He doesn’t get very far before he’s pursued by police. Why are the police after him? We, like he, don’t know, although we, like he, figure that a box full of money, a stack of passports and a gun don’t add up to a strictly legal identity.
Favorite screenplays: The Bourne Identity part 2
Jason Bourne has left the fishing boat, which is his metaphorical home town, has said goodbye to his foster father, and has set out to seek his fortune in the world. That sounds like the opening of a Grimm tale, which might seem odd for a fast-paced, big-budget espionage thriller. And yet, it just goes to show that storytelling hasn’t really changed since Grimm — there are still orphans, literal and figurative, leaving home, looking for themselves, looking for their identities. (Hanna took this to much more explicit ends.)
(Further reflection on my part connects Jason Bourne to Melville’s Ishmael — another orphan of the storm fished out of the water — but that’s a discussion for another time.)