Hello my Beautiful Watchers… Fun question
for you. Who has two thumbs and damaged vocal
cords? This guy.
It's nothing irreparable, in fact it will
heal entirely on its own but only if I give
myself some vocal rest which is a bit of a
problem when my full time job is to monologue
at a camera for hours on end.
The solution I have devised is to reach out
to some Youtuber friends of mine and ask them
to fill in for me for the next two episodes.
This installment is being covered by my friend
Kate aka That Movie Chick, who you might remember
from The Thing Lost in Adaptation.
Just to be clear: This is still going to be
all my writing and editing. She’s going
to be be saying things like “in my opinion”
but what she means by that is my opinion,
because it turns out I’ve gotten so used
to my writing scripts in a first person format
I am now incapable of doing it any other way.
Basically what I’m trying to say is: if
there's any dumb mistakes in this episode
they are 100% Dom’s. Hope you enjoy.
Hello Dom’s Beautiful Watchers, That Movie
Chick here and welcome to Lost In Adaptation,
the internet review show that compares film
adaptations to the book they’re based on
to see how loyally they stuck to the original
plot.
The Bourne Identity is a spy fiction thriller
written by Robert Ludlum in 1980. It tells
the tale of a man with no memory but an impressive
array of combat and espionage skills and a
string of clues leading to his past life.
Ludlum supposedly conceived of the idea of
an amnesiac assassin after experiencing a
genuine but fortunately less extreme bout
of memory loss himself.
After Identity was well received, Ludlum went
on to write two more books making a trilogy.
Then after he passed away in 2001 fellow author
Eric Van Lustbader picked up the series, writing
12 more making a… fuck ton of Bourne books.
The Bourne Identity was adapted into film
twice. Once in 1988, directed by Roger Young
and starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn
Smith.
Then again in 2002, the subject of today’s
episode.
Directed by Doug Liman with screenwriting
by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, the
2002 version starred Matt Damon as the titular
Jason Bourne and a supporting cast including
Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen,
Brian Cox and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.
It’s… an adaptation In Name Only. Sorry,
I thought I should probably rip that bandaid
off as quickly as possible. There's some tie
ins here and there but for the most part the
film just took the concept of the amnesiac
super spy and went in their own direction
with it.
In light of this, following the usual Lost
in Adaptation three part format would be a
bit pointless so instead I’m going recap
both versions of the story separately before
talking about the few similarities and the
particularly ironic changes.
As the film seems to be the more popular of
the two by an unprecedentedly huge margin,
for dramatic purposes I’m going to start
with that and save the lesser known book until
the end.
The film starts with a rather soggy American
being pulled out of the Mediterranean Sea.
Against all recommended medical practices,
a sailor performs surgery on him to remove
several bullets from his back on a rocking
boat with no gloves, anesthetic or antiseptic.
In the process he discovers a cool laser projector
inside his skin that contains information
about a vault in a Swiss bank.
Despite this infection nightmare the man wakes
up almost immediately but has absolutely no
memory of who he is or how he became driftwood.
Cutting to CIA headquarters, Conklin, a man
in charge of a black ops subdivision, code
named Treadstone, is informed that a mission
has gone tits up.
After just two weeks he’s completely recovered
and sets out for Zurich to see about this
vault business.
While traveling two unnecessarily pushy cops
harass him and all three of them are surprised
to discover that he is not a man to be messed
with lightly.
Back at the CIA, the top brass are concerned
because exiled African dictator Nykwana Wombosi
is on TV claiming he has proof that the agency
tried to assassinate him.
Abbott, a senior staff member asks Conklin
if Treadstone was involved and he confirms
they sent an agent to kill Wombosi but lost
contact with him two weeks ago.
Meanwhile our currently unnamed protagonist
makes his way to the Zurich bank and after
being relieved to discover he is the rightful
owner of the vault. He opens it to discover
a lot of cash and fake IDs that designate
him, amongst multiple other names Jason Bourne,
resident of Paris.
He also finds a handgun but decides not to
take that with him.
After he leaves the bank some policemen start
tailing him so he takes cover in the American
Consulate building.
Bourne has just enough time to see a German
woman failing to get a travel visa and complaining
about money issues before security catches
up to him resulting in more fights and a mad
dash around and down the outside of the building.
He approaches the woman he saw before, Marie
Kreutz, and offers her a LOT of money to drive
him to his address in Paris.
Back at Treadstone once again, Conklin is
shocked to be informed his agent is still
alive and just cleared out his emergency vault
in Zurich. His team see Marie on security
footage and start a manhunt on both of them.
He later escalates this by activating three
sleeper agents with orders to kill Bourne.
On their way to France, Bourne decides to
take a leap of faith and trust Marie with
his entire limited backstory and his concerns
about his instinctive violent tendencies.
They get to Paris but don't find much in his
apartment. The first of the three assassins
surprises them and tries to kill Bourne but
is defeated in knife to pen combat.
Rather than be interrogated by his captor
he chooses to run through a door and off the edge of
the balcony in what I can only assume
was an unintentionally very humorous death scene.
Suicide squad, attack!
:glass breaking, sound of body falling:
That showed ‘em, huh?
Bourne tries to talk Marie into abandoning
him and saving herself. She chooses to stay,
so gets to go on an epic car chase through
the streets of the city.
Wombosi is presented with a corpse and told
its the man who tried to kill him but is not
fooled so Treadstone reassigns the second
assassin sent after Bourne to snipe him through
a window to stop him from causing more trouble.
While hiding out at a cheap hotel and changing
their appearances, Bourne and Marie get to
know each other a little better.
Bourne later finds a connection between him
and Wombosi and discovers that someone tried
to kill the dictator while he was on a yacht,
very close to where Bourne was found floating
near death.
Meanwhile at Treadstone they still super want
to kill Bourne. There's a lot of dramatic
dialogue but that's the gist of it.
Marie takes him to a friend’s vacation home
to lie low though is surprised to find her
friend is unexpectedly there which is… awkward.
The second assassin tracks them down but like
everyone else so far is defeated by Bourne
who is probably quite pleased to have access
to an ancient shotgun instead of a pen this
time.
A mortally wounded Clive Owen assassin tells
Bourne they’re both Treadstone employees
before dying. Referencing some sort of conditioning
they went through to make them super killers.
Borne decides to go on the offensive, sending
Marie away with her friend and calling Conklin
to set up a one on one meeting.
Conklin of course doesn't really come alone
but it turns out this was part of Bourne’s
plan, using the opportunity to track him back
to his local safe house.
Assaulting the building at night he gets the
drop on Conklin, who confirms Bourne used
to be a Treadstone field agent and again referencing
an extensive experimental treatment that was
used to turn him into the ultimate assassin.
This triggers a flashback for Bourne of his
last mission and he remembers he couldn’t
bring himself to kill Wombosi while he was
surrounded by his children and was shot in
the back while trying to bug out.
Bourne fights his way out of the building
partly by surfing a corpse down a multistory
sheer drop in blatant defiance of physics
and good special effects.
Abbott decides to cut the CIA’s losses and
has the final assassin kill Conklin instead
of Bourne, burying the whole Treadstone project.
After some time and effort, Bourne tracks
down and is reunited with Marie in Mykonos.
At the time of its release, The Bourne Identity
was pretty successful at selling itself as
a more gritty, realistic, action oriented
James Bond. So successful in fact the influence
came full circle and later Bond movies became
significantly more gritty, realistic and action
oriented.
It's not entirely fair to say that the plot
is just an excuse for the action but its not
exactly more important than it either. Although
what plot there is, it’s suspiciously similar
to The Replacement Killers and Long Kiss Goodnight.
As if the director took out all the bits he
liked and smashed them together.
In a weird disparity in quality, the fight
choreography is amazing but the sound effects
for things like punching and kicking sound
like they were taken from the stock files
that come with Windows Movie Maker.
:generic movie punching sounds:
Hats off to Matt Damon who apparently trained
super hard for this role and did a lot of
his own stunts.
I thought it was a nice touch that Jason quickly
checks a map of the city to figure out where
to go before embarking on his car chase, and
that actually makes it more amusing that they
were super inconsistent about which parts
of Paris they filmed in so if you’re familiar
with the landmarks it looks like he’s teleporting
all over the place during those scenes.
Ok well that was the adaptation, now let's
take a look at what it was adapting.
Just before we start though I’m afraid I
must include a trigger warning for victims
of sexual assault as that unfortunately is
the basis of a big turning point in this book.
The tale begins with a man being shot in the
head on a boat just off the Mediterranean
coast and falling into the sea. Shortly afterwards,
the boat explodes and he loses consciousness.
Fishermen find him and bring him to an island
doctor by the name of Washburn who is living
his life in exile from his homeland of England
due to malpractice issues involving his rampant
alcoholism.
Sobering up enough to perform life saving
brain surgery, Washburn nurses the mysterious
man back to health. When he regains consciousness,
due to a combination of his head wound and
time adrift, he can’t remember anything
about his life before being in the water.
Washburn also discovers a subdermally implanted
microfilm in his patient’s leg that contains
info on a Swiss bank vault in Zurich.
He spends 6 months recovering, then Washburn
recommends putting him on a work placement
on a fishing boat to see if that jogs his
memory. Unfortunately all it leads to is a
fight between him and the sailors where he
discovers he knows kung fu and nearly kills
three of them.
Washburn gives him a fake passport and helps
smuggle him to Switzerland. After some shenanigans
he makes it to Zurich and has a look inside
his vault.
It contains 5 million dollars and a ton of
fake passports and IDs. In gratitude for saving
his life he transfers a million to Dr. Washburn
and sends the rest to be picked up in Paris.
He has some clues and a strong feeling his
next destination should be there.
He also discovers his name is Jason Bourne
and finds some references to a company called
Treadstone 71 but can’t find any hint of
their existence anywhere else.
On his way out of the bank he’s jumped by
some armed goons who he manages to fight off
and escape. They track him down again at his
hotel, forcing him to grab another guest to
use as a meat shield.
Her name is Marie St. Jacques, a Canadian
government employee there for a conference
and she’s obviously not super keen on being
kidnapped. Bourne gains her acquiescence by
hitting her, shoving a gun in her face and
constantly lying about letting her go soon.
She makes several attempts to escape, to increasingly
violent results, eventually agreeing to be
his driver as he’s been too hurt in his
constant fights to do it himself.
Bourne’s clues eventually lead him to a
German disabled war veteran who tries to shoot
him. While Bourne is busy killing him Marie
escapes and runs right into the clutches of
the hired killers pursuing them.
Feeling guilty about dragging her into his
mess, Bourne tries to barter for her release
but fails and she’s led away to be murdered.
Bourne does more gritty fighting and kills
his would be executioners. He then hurries
over to rescue Marie, finding that her captor
has decided to rape her before shooting her.
He fights him off, taking more serious injuries
in the process.
This is a part of the book that I found particularly
distasteful. Marie is so very very grateful
that Bourne did this she chooses to save him
in return by dragging him to a back alley
doctor and staying with him as he recovers.
She spends the rest of the book hero worshiping
him and falls head over heels in love, constantly
referring to him stopping her rape and being
willing to die to save her.
Apparently she chose to edit out of her headcanon
the fact that she never would have been in
that situation in the first place if he hadn’t
violently assaulted her and threatened her
life multiple times to save his own ass.
They travel to Paris together to keep following
clues to Bourne’s past and identity, getting
into more shenanigans trying to withdraw his
money under intense surveillance from his
enemies.
Bourne eventually discovers that the men trying
to kill him are in the employ of a man named
Carlos. The world's most famous and successful
assassin and crime boss. A guy who started
his career with the assassination of JFK and
moved up from there.
Bourne is distressed to find more and more
evidence that in addition to being Jason Bourne
he also sometimes used to go by the codename
Cain. He was a former paramilitary mercenary
in a group called Medusa. He had aspirations
of taking Carlos’ spot as top dog assassin
and to this end had spent the last 3 years
killing as many people as possible at a discount
rate.
After learning this, he starts to hear the
words “Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!”
in his head over and over again.
Unknown to Bourne, during all this, government
agents in America are freaking out because
it turns out Treadstone 71 is a secret special
ops agency that he works for as a deep cover
agent.
He was just pretending to be an assassin to
draw Carlos out, knowing he would be enraged
by his actions and attempt to squash his new
rival as quickly as possible.
Due to his 6 months of inactivity and his
unexpected withdrawal of his cover money they
now think Bourne has changed sides to work
for Carlos or gone rogue and stolen the cash.
It’s revealed the lead’s name isn’t
even really Jason Bourne, that was a guy he
killed and assumed the identity of at the
start of his deep cover mission. His real
name is David Webb.
Only 8 people know about this and unfortunately
Carlos uses his network of spies and turncoats
to get wise to the whole thing and sends men
to attack the Treadstone 71 headquarters,
killing almost all of them and using planted
fingerprints to frame Bourne.
Meanwhile Bourne has been infiltrating a fashion
store that he learned is being used as a front
for Carlos.
The info he gets there leads to a General
Villiers, a war hero and public figure beloved
by most of France.
Even though it seems unlikely Bourne at first
assumes he’s a spy working for Carlos. However
when they meet and have a manly fight he learns
Carlos killed his son and he hates him with
every fiber of his being.
Figuring someone close to him is the spy he
almost immediately suspects his young wife,
and she does indeed turn out to be Carlos’
first cousin and lover.
They make a plan to use her to get to Carlos
but Villiers loses his mind with rage and
strangles his wife before they can put it
in motion.
Bourne adusts the plan on the fly and takes
the blame for the murder to lure Carlos into
chasing him to America to avenge his incestuous
love.
He leads him to New York and the former Treadstone
71 headquarters where they have a climactic
battle.
Bourne, now the only person in the world who’s
seen his face and lived thinks he looked familiar,
and might even be a public figure of some
sort but he can’t place him because of his
memory loss.
The government finally gets the full story
and believes Bourne’s innocence and the
book ends with him and Marie under 24 hour
protection while they wait for his memory
to hopefully come back. On the last page he
remembers his real first name is David so
that’s… nice.
The main issue I have with The Bourne Identity
is just how incredibly overwritten it is.
It is 523 pages and it could VERY easily have
been half that without losing any of the story
I just described or any of the many many bits
I didn’t even include.
There's a halfway interesting plot in there
but it’s buried under the kind of blabbermouth
verboseness thats makes me wonder if Ludlum
was being paid by the word like Gaston Leroux.
I HAVE to give you an example of this. Not
long into the book Bourne recognises a man
who tried to kill him once already and knows
has a silencer on his gun. That's all the
information he needs to give you but he chooses
to present it as:
“Then from the other door another figure
emerged, but it was not the driver who had
been at the curb on the Bahnhofstrasse, waiting
for a target he did not recognize. Instead,
it was another killer, in another raincoat,
its wide pockets recessed for powerful weapons.
It was the man who had sat in the reception
room on the second floor of the Gemeinschaft
Bank, the same man who had pulled a .38 caliber
pistol from a holster beneath his coat. A
pistol with a perforated cylinder on its barrel
that silenced two bullets meant for the skull
of the quarry he had followed into an elevator.”
That is SO much unnecessary information and
reminders of things that had JUST happened
mere pages before. For goodness sake why did
he feel the need to tell us who the person
wasn’t?!
Repetition is also a big issue. Certain phrases
are said over and over again, intended for
dramatic effect but it’s done so many times
one’s brain starts to feel like it's slowly
melting.
Again, as an example: “Cain is for Charlie
and Delta is for Cain is written 18 times
and the before mentioned “Get Carlos. Trap
Carlos. Kill Carlos!” comes up 17 times.
That's too many times. You can’t repeat
the same thing over and over again even in
a book this size.
Ludlum also feels the need to constantly remind
the reader that due to plastic surgery, Bourne
has a SUPER nondescript face that no one can
remember or describe later.
There's an entire chapter that could have
been summarized into a sentence. Literally
one sentence: “Bourne spent the next few
days sowing misinformation in enemy ranks.”
But no, we just have to hear detailed descriptions
of every single encounter and every word exchanged
between him and a dozen confused French people.
This book doesn't even have the usual excuse
for this, being serialised originally. It
was always intended to be a super long insanely
repetitive tome of a novel.
Every conversation that Bourne overhears turns
out to be useful to him later in his espionage.
This is supposed to imply he’s resourceful
and creative enough to make anything and everything
useful but after awhile it really starts to
feel like Bourne exists in one of those hand
holding video games that throws hints in your
face every few seconds via the dialogue.
Gosh, it sure is hard work being a receptionist
at a store that's secretly a front for organized
crime and having to carry around all these
keys to secret vaults and this list of passwords
to the secure server. I’m glad we have a
bunch of new employees coming in today who
none of us have met in person before but will
recognise because they’re all wearing the
exact outfit I have on now.
Most of this book takes place in France and
weirdly Ludlum only sometimes translates the
French into English for the sake of the reader
and other times just has short blocks of French
that you have to try to understand from context.
Ludlum seems to have a really specific issue
with slightly older women who used to be models.
On multiple occasions describing them, their
thinness and their overuse of makeup in tones
of unmissable disgust.
So here’s a final fun fact about this book:
Carlos is a real person. Ludlum wrote real
life terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez aka
Carlos the Jackal into his books. This is
proven by the prologue that consists of two
real life newspaper articles about the killer.
Wow…. Ludlum must have been REALLY sure
Carlos would never escape from prison to write
about him presumably without consent.
Final Thoughts:
So yeah like I said, the filmmakers clearly
just liked the set up of the book and not
much else.
No Carlos, no Medusa, no Washburn, no General
Villiers or his wife, no big Cain plot twist,
pretty much nothing in common with the plot
once he enters the bank.
I didn’t really care for the book so I didn’t
find this too offensive but from an adaptation
critic point of view, I do have to acknowledge
it’s a bit disrespectful of them to help
themselves to that and the name recognition
that came with the title while gutting everything
else that the fans of the book might have
enjoyed.
Considering they went on to make the whole
trilogy I think said fans would justifiably
take the most umbrage with the decision to
completely erase the overarching villain of
that trilogy. Carlos wasn’t the most interesting
of villains but he was pretty damn integral
to Bourne’s arc.
I also think if Ludlum had wanted to make
the CIA the uncontested unscrupulous evildoers
of the story he... You know… Would have.
There are characters named Conklin and Abbott
in the book but they’re nothing like the
gentlemen of the film. Despite my use of them,
their names are never actually said out loud
in the film so you'd only know they’re supposed
to be those guys if you check the credits.
Likewise, the only thing the two Maries have
in common is their first name.
I must confess I consider their love story
in the film a vast improvement due to the
lack of Bourne hitting her in the face for
not doing what he told her to do and her groveling
gratitude for ending the sexual assault he
was mostly responsible for getting her into
in the first place.
You see little references to the book like
one of his alter egos being called Kane, though
amusingly they make a point of saying it’s
spelt with a K when it’s a C in the book.
The titles of the next three books in the
series, The Bourne Supremacy, Ultimatum and
Legacy were all used for the sequels to the
film but they all ended up having even less
in common with their source material than
The Bourne Identity.
The latest installment in the franchise appears
to have finally become self honest about having
nothing to do with the works of Robert Ludlum
or Eric Van Lustbader and is simply titled
“Jason Bourne.”
I will say that I think a modernised Bourne
Identity that's super loyal to the book was
probably never feasible regardless of the
filmmaker’s intent.
So much of the book’s plot is dependent
on 1970’s level of technology to make sense.
Half of the espionage involved getting to
a phone at a certain time, easily forged papers
and a complete lack of photographic evidence
of a person's existence.
The addition of cell phones, widespread security
cameras or basic internet access would render
most of the events nonsensical.
That said… They could have tried just a
little bit harder not to snub the book so
utterly.
Thank you for joining me Dom’s Beautiful
Watchers, before we part ways be sure not
to let amnesia make you forget to like, comment,
share, subscribe and all the other good stuff
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If you’d like to keep this new acquaintanceship
going you can check out my Youtube channel,
there’s the thing and as Dom would say,
I hope you have a most pleasant day and I
will see you soon.
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Hello again my Beautiful Watchers. I just
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Lost in Adaptation episode. That’s actually
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the next episode.
I would say, you should see my bloopers, oh
my god.
The Bourne Identity is a spy fiction thriller
written by Lob...le be buh. I just want to
say Lobert. Lobert Ludlum.
Dom offscreen: Lobert Ludlum, yeah I get that.
The Bourne Identity is a spy fiction thriller
written by Robert Ludlum in 1980. :laughs:
I’m sorry, I’m thinking of Loblert.
:Dom laughing offscreen:
Okay.
The Bourne Identity is a spy fiction thriller
wri...wri.
Dom offscreen: I feel like I’ve cursed you
by saying, Man I would have screwed that up
like a bunch of times and now I’ve got you
thinking about it.
I’ve been jinxed. It’s okay.
Ludlum supposedly conceived of the idea of
an amnesiac assahh...hmm.
You know, it’s Eric Van, uh... Lus, Lustbader,
right?
Dom offscreen: Eric Van Lustbader.
Dom’s phone: According to Wikipedia, Eric
Van Lustbader is a…
It is, okay. Cool.
Brian Cox. Oh my tummy.
Dom offscreen: You hungry?
I guess.
Feeling guilty about tra… :laughs: Sorry,
him feeling guilty just made me laugh.
Dom offscreen: Yeah, suddenly he grows a conscience.
:laughs: Oh, I could fuck her later!
Which I saw, yeah, no one had…
Dom offscreen: No one’s read the book, unless
they’d read the f, seen the, read the, seen,
make, seen, make eyes at the film.
Confused French people.
Like, well, let’s put it this way: if I’m
gonna say I’m not gonna like something,
it means I’ve tried several times.
Dom offscreen: Mmm, that’s fair.
I’m not a quitter. Unless it stars...Kevin
Costner.
Due to his 6 months of inactivity and his
unex...ble ble ble. Due to his 6 months of
i...nope.
-blabbermouth verboseness thats makes me wonder
if Ludlum was being paid by the...sorry I’m
laughing at the joke. And I also think you
meant to put “by the word.”
Dom offscreen: What did I say?
By the world.
Dom offscreen: Paid by the WORLD! Have sixteen
planets for this book, sir.
-quarry he had followed into an elevator.”
Dom offscreen: Holy shit, you nailed that!
-from a holster beneath its coat, his coat.
:laughs:
Dom offscreen: Oh no, THAT’s the word you
mess up, coat?!
I know, I meant to s...
Dom offscreen: Oh no, I’m sorry.
It’s okay.
-curb on the Bahnhofstrasse...ugh.
Dom offscreen: You did it.
I know, but like it was like I ran out of
breath saying it cuz it was such a long ass
word. Okay.
-Gemeinschaft Bank, why, why, WHY? WHY.
Dom offscreen: :laughing: Yup.
-but it was not the driver who had been at
the curb on the...ohhh.
Oh wait.
Dom offscreen: Oh we did not do that.
I notice a Ramirez Sanchez but I don’t know
if that’s like a Leek...or Lich...or Lick.
No. I’m leaving.
Dom offscreen: Aww.
