Review of Jason Bourne (2016) by Jhep — 30 Jul 2016

My Amnesia Film Festival and the latest “Jason Bourne”.

Psychologists have been making important discoveries about the link between trauma and amnesia. There appears to be healthy and even necessary connection between the two; when trauma occurs we forget what would be too painful or too debilitating to remember. The issue then becomes…when does such amnesia cease to play it’s life-preserving and equilibrium-maintaining role and become destructive…..At that point one might almost say “ask Jason Bourne”.

Robert Ludlum created the Jason Bourne character in Bourne Trilogy thrillers and now Matt Damon has incarnated him in four films based on Ludlum’s work. Indeed Ludlum and Damon can now be given credit for having brought amnesia back into the marketplace where it belongs and to have rescued the concept itself from…..amnesia. Gore Vidal should also be mentioned as having made a contribution in this regard for his having come up with the phrase “The United States of Amnesia”. At the risk of going out on a limb I would even argue that amnesia is in fact THE phenomenon of our time and I predict that future historians will look back on the 20th and 21st centuries as having been massively affected by trauma and by the amnestic response to trauma which necessarily follows. For my baby boom generation the Second World War was the overwhelmingly defining event of our time.……“How so?” some may ask “You weren’t even around”. My answer to that is “No. But our parents were.” It is psychologically naïve to imagine that the massive culture shocks that accompanied WW2 came to an end in August 1945 when Japan surrendered and the war ended, which is another way of saying that we Baby Boomers and our slightly older siblings made out entrance on to the Stage of Life amidst a massively traumatized and overwhelmed society made up of parents, relations and various societal guardians and caregivers attempting to cope with massive culture shock which was the psychological fall-out of WW2, The Crazy Making War ……which brings us back to Jason Bourne.

Robert Ludlum intuitively connected with this vital cultural information as well as the potential “thriller gold mine” it suggested and came up with the intriguing character of Jason Bourne, the exquisitely skilled and highly trained CIA “killing machine” who happens to have a severe case of amnesia. The latest version of these stories of what has become a veritable franchise is simply titled “Jason Bourne”. In it Matt Damon has patented a look of glowering and thoughtful intelligence (in fact the kind of look some of us have when we try to remember where we left our keys) which look signals to his enthralled and loyal fans (in which I include myself) that he’s about unleash such unimaginable mayhem on an opponent, that he or she will instantly rue the day they were born…..…And although in less competent hands this can be overdone Damon has the knack of pulling it off every time.

Added to all the interesting depth psychology presented here we find some very considerable creative smarts on the part of director Paul Greengrass. Among them, in the first hour or so of the film, are truly amazing scenes of the desperate political turmoil in Greece which are conveyed with remarkable realism and urgency. Also adding the film’s political heft and credentials is the fact that there are clear and sympathetic references to Edward Snowden and his leaks of the massive NSA surveillance that he made public. In fact the second half of the film develops a major storyline developed about a Verizon-like media giant called “Deep Dreams” whose creator and CEO is being pressured by the CIA chief (Tommy Lee Jones at his world-weary best) into allowing the government access to its customers private records. And finally, political heft-wise, we have what is arguably the most dazzling star of the film; a chilling look at the staggering level of the sophistication that the technological surveillance industry has “achieved” in this age of drone missile attacks and satellite hyper-scrutiny of citizens.

Worth noting also is the fact that Paul Greengrass who also directed the extremely impressive and utterly riveting “United 93”: the story of the plane hi-jacked during the 9/11 attacks that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control of the plane. He also directed “The Bourne Supremacy” which is still the best of the Bourne series and which benefited hugely from a brilliant script by Tony Gilroy and amazing performances by Franka Potente and Matt Damon.

One of these days I will compile a list of my favorite Amnesia Films. Already I know that Edward Dmytryk’s wonderful “Mirage” will be on it and also Alfred Hitchcock’s delightful “Spellbound”. Both films star the great Gregory Peck and no one knew how to play amnesiacs better than Gregory Peck…..…. except maybe (now) Matt Damon.