Director: Doug Liman
Cinematographer: Oliver Wood
Editor: Saar Klein
Writers: Tony Gilroy; W. Blake Herron; Robert Ludlum
Actors: Matt Damon; Franka Potente; Chris Cooper
Composer: John Powell
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Cinematographer: Oliver Wood
Editors: Richard Pearson; Christoper Rouse
Writers: Tony Gilroy; Robert Ludlum
Actors: Matt Damon; Joan Allen; Brian Cox
Composer: John Powell
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Director: Paul Greengrass
Cinematographer: Oliver Wood
Editor: Christopher Rouse
Writers: Tony Gilroy; Scott Burns; George Nolfi; Robert Ludlum
Actors: Matt Damon; Julia Stiles; Joan Allen; David Straithairn
Composer: John Powell
The Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum are interesting because of their status as a trilogy. I could spend copious amounts of time comparing the different styles of direction and editing, but this is mostly unnecessary. All three films share a cinematographer, so the atmosphere is constant between each film. To quickly review each film’s style, Identity has an extremely strong story that is combined with a direction and style of editing that presents the necessary fight scenes and car chases in an easy to follow manner. Supremacy has the most problems style-wise of the trilogy—although the story is strong, the direction (specifically framing) is nowhere near as coherent, and the editing is the film’s greatest weakness. Fight scenes are confused and choppy and seem like an attempt to convey the fight in cuts instead of images. While this may be something to applaud in other films, in Supremacy the use of editing seems more like away to cover something up, then a style choice. Regardless of the truth of this statement, the feeling persists. Finally, Ultimatum has a passable story and the editing improves to a degree, but it is still lacking in comparison to Identity. As I said, however, it is not the styles of the films I am interested in. It is the interplay between films that I want to discuss here.
When a film is a sequel, it is not necessary that the film be treated as a sequel. However, when a film makes its nature as a sequel part of the film itself, then it must be judged in terms of its success as a sequel. It is sometimes unfortunate that this is the common tact taken for sequels.
At times, a first film in a series is made with the idea that it will continue. When this is also built into the film, the film must be judged as a beginning. Luckily, Identity avoids this pitfall by making itself a coherent whole. There did not have to be a sequel. Because Identity exists as an isolated whole, there is no reason to judge the film against its sequels.
Supremacy and Ultimatum, on the other hand, face double duty. Supremacy as a linking film that must escape from the status quo of Identity, while setting up the possibility of Ultimatum; and Ultimatum having to deal with the impact of Supremacy, while concluding the strands begun with Identity. Both films suffer from their necessary connections, but both films have different faults resulting from their placement. Supremacy suffers from a lack of movement. Ultimatum suffers from too much movement. It is abundantly obvious that these weaknesses are a result the films lack of coherence as a trilogy. Identity solves very little of the overall mystery—Bourne’s identity—while still resolving the overall conflict that is the film’s main concern. It is left then for Supremacy and Ultimatum to create new conflict and resolve the overall mystery. The execution of this in both films is less than ideal because only Ultimatum is constructed towards a trilogy as an end.
At the end of Identity, we are left with the feeling that the enemy has been defeated and Bourne can continue trying to discover his identity in peace. Supremacy has to change this status quo and it does so in the quickest, sloppiest way possible. This is a problem because it makes the second film seem like an artificial addition to the first film. However, in establishing the story of Supremacy, the way is left open for any number of Bourne stories. In fact, Supremacy feels like an attempt to set up a never ending Bourne series. The story is generally standalone despite the origins remaining in the first film, and the ending of Supremacy leaves open the possibility of an organic outgrowth of the series that would give no limit to the adventures Bourne could have. Removed from the severing motions at the beginning of the film, the story of Supremacy is incredibly straight forward and sets the stage for the fight scenes and car chases, while also establishing Bourne as a character firmly committed to righting past wrongs. It is this characterization (which is an outgrowth of Identity) and the epilogue scene that make Supremacy such an ideal starting point for a series. It serves as a transformative adventure for the franchise, which gives the series a logical continuation removed from the conflict of Identity.
It is interesting then that Ultimatum decides to completely abandon the foundation laid in Supremacy in favor of re-envisioning the entire cycle of films as a trilogy. To this end, Ultimatum introduces a large scale conflict, which was never a presence in either Identity or Supremacy. It tries to tie together all the events of the previous two films and it does this in a very obvious and artificial way—by having the enemy be an even larger version of Identity’s enemy. Both Identity and Supremacy presented small scale operations within a larger organization. Ultimatum makes the entire organization the enemy, even going so far as to make the organization a stand-in for the current US administration. While Identity and Supremacy were largely set in certain sections of the world, Ultimatum makes the whole world its playground.
In its desire to turn the three film series into a trilogy, Ultimatum makes itself the most firmly dependent on the previous films. But its dependence is an odd one. Each successive film in the series has rewritten the status quo of the previous films in a less than organic way, but where Supremacy merely tried to cut its ties to its predecessor’s legacy, Ultimatum attempts to usurp the legacy of both its predecessors by destroying them. What is difficult to discover, and what may not be there to discover, is why this destruction was necessary. Identity effectively closed the book on Bourne, while leaving room for new books. Supremacy took that room in a harmful way, but redeemed itself by laying a foundation for organic sequels. So, why did Ultimatum then choose to close the book again in an incredibly forced and revisionist manner? We can’t know the reason from the films, so we are left only with the impact to consider.
Ultimatum wants to frame the debate on the series, but this is something it cannot completely achieve—both Identity and Supremacy exist within their individual goals. Each film cannot be judged by its descendents—they can only be judged by their predecessors. As a trilogy, Ultimatum must win the war for dominance, but its revisionist impact is felt only in its own story.
Story-wise, neither Supremacy nor Ultimatum are particularly revolutionary, but Supremacy is common in a very purposeful way—it’s intention to set up a status quo to frame a continuing series of stories is refreshingly simple and direct. This does not save the film from its own flaws. Editing and direction aside, the beginning and end to Supremacy’s story is abrupt—it is in its abruptness that it’s true goal of foundation-building is revealed. Without this abruptness, Supremacy may well have achieved an enjoyable, small scale, action thriller, but its weaknesses are there for the world to see.
In contrast, Ultimatum’s story is common because of it’s over the top nature, which gets no awards for originality. At the same time, Ultimatum has far less distracting from it’s main narrative. The film succeeds in it’s personal narrative goals: it brings to a conclusion a trilogy that barely exists and it tells a larger than life action story. Add to this the superior editing of Ultimatum and it actually stands out over Supremacy.
The Bourne Trilogy is an interesting accidental experiment in multi-film narrative. The three films together are interesting because of their conflicting goals. On the other hand, the disparate goals make for a poor trilogy. Identity was a standout movie because of its strong storytelling ability both in script and direction. Supremacy and Ultimatum fall short of this goal in both areas, while adding new problems of their own to the mix. While fascinating from the outside, inside the Bourne Trilogy is too disparate to succeed on the terms established for it in The Bourne Ultimatum. Luckily this disparity does not harm the individual films. Just because Ultimatum is the main cause of the trilogy’s conflicts, however, does not get The Bourne Supremacy off the hook. Supremacy creates similar problems for itself because of it’s own exercises in inter-film manipulation. It is only The Bourne Identity that rises above this error merely because of its position as the first film in what was not yet a series. The meta-filmic weight weighs most heavily on Ultimatum, but because it takes on the weight of reframing the series it dodges the harm that Supremacy brings on itself. Supremacy attempts to change the direction of the series. Ultimatum attempts to reinterpret the series. In reframing a film series it appears the best option is all or nothing.