Character Analysis 1

Jason Bourne is a character played by Matt Damon in the Bourne Identity. He is the main protagonist in the film and through the course of the film we see his character develop as we and himself learn new things about him.

We are introduced to Bourne with an aerial view of him lying unconscious in the sea, where he is lifted out by Italian fishermen. The fishermen discover that Bourne has been shot in the back, they also find a microchip implanted in his body which contains a number to a safety deposit box. When Bourne gains consciousness the fishermen question him to gain more information about him, however he is unable to answer the questions even on his own name; the fishermen and himself realise at this point that he is suffering from amnesia as a result of a serious head wound. When inland Bourne goes to the safety deposit box where he finds several passports under different names, a gun, a large sum of money and other personal items. He later discovers he is being hunted by the police as he comes into combat with them, immediately after he meets a young woman named Marie of whom he offers a large sum of money in return of a car escape to Paris to get away from the police. When in Paris he is attacked in his own apartment where he defends himself well, disarming the attacker. He then tries to find out who the attacker is and why he is after him but the attacker was quick to commit suicide leaving Bourne with nothing. Bourne realises he is an assassin and was shot, left to die in the sea after aborting the assassination of Nykwana Wombosi, an African dictator. After being discovered in the hotel, they escape to the countryside to stay with Marie’s friend, however once again they are attacked by an assassin named Conklin. Bourne tracks Conklin’s vehicle and follows him to a safe house where he tells him he no longer wish’s to be an assassin, he then returns to Marie and they re-unite.

The film is all about Bourne discovering his identity. We learn at the very start he suffers from amnesia and as a result has no recall of the events that happened before his attack. Although later in the plot we discover that he is an assassin, the audience remain to have empathy towards him as to us he appears a different man; when he defends himself against the police, this is what we see, him defending himself rather than fighting with rage. This shows he isn’t who he wants to be, and that all this fighting is a life which he no longer wants, when escaping the scene he is very panicky, this would not be the behaviour of an assassin, he then confides in a woman who he puts a lot of trust in. A conventional assassin would have an emotionless feeling towards the situation and would have the attitude of being ‘one to himself’; instead we learn that Bourne does have these emotions of love even though before meeting Marie this wasn’t an emotion that existed in his life. I think this is something he learns about himself, maybe that he wants to be loved or to be like an ordinary man living an ordinary life.

Although Bourne may come across as being an antagonist due to him being an assassin, trained to kill people for a living, we soon discover that actually he is a good guy, and in fact is the main protagonist in the film. When we first see Bourne he is wearing normal brightly coloured clothes, rather than dark plain clothes, which you would expect a ‘bad guy’ to be wearing. Throughout the film we see moments of panic from him, suggesting he doesn’t want to be in the situations he is placed into, and the fighting he does is just instinct rather than him being a rebellious dangerous man, we as an audience feel he is an innocent person and want as much for him to be taken away from the CIA.

We see that Bourne is a caring person by the way he acts with Marie. At first on would presume he is very naïve and only cares for himself due to the fact that he changes Marie’s life by getting her involved in his problems. However he does offer her ways out through the course of the film, but she puts trust in him and they form a connection between them, this is when we realise he is a changed man who cares for people close to him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4efr_NASQE&feature=related