[Bond]

Agreed, as was that flying mass of shit, Armaggedon.

[civilian_number_two]

David, I appreciate that you don't like the Doug Liman adaptation of THE BOURNE IDENTITY, but technically it's not a "remake;" it's an independent adaptation of the same source material. You might as well criticise Kenneth Branagh for remaking Olivier's superior film version of HAMLET. And of course, Olivier in turn for a similar crime.

A film "remake" is a second interpretation of material written directly for the screen, be it tv or film. For the record, I don't oppose them on principal, but I agree they're basically just producers mining previous successes to avoid risk. Maybe that's what this was, but I don't think that anyone much noticed the 3.5-hour tv film starring Jaclyn Smith and the guy from SHOGUN. I was an adult at the time and I never heard of it. So, I doubt that too.

Anyway, I read the first book in the Bourne series, and the Liman film is not an adaptation of that at all. Unlike the tv movie, it departs from the narrative so drastically that it's odd they bothered to pay for the material at all. I liked the movie quite a bit, and hated the book. I have liked both sequels as well, but think Paul Greengrass is lousy at filming action. For SUPREMACY he tightened up all of the shots so that you couldn't see the action; in this one he did the same but added lots more shake to the handheld frames, which are numerous (and not limited to the action sequences).

I think the third ends in a decent way, but the action bits get progressively sillier. I really liked the retconning in this, and that's something I generally don't like at all. In this film, it was done quite cleverly. I'd elaborate but we haven't posted a spoiler alert on this thread.

[Bond]

You know, I agree with you, Civ, on every point. I'm gratified by that.

Tell me, though, am I the only one who considers Extreme Ways, by Moby, to be the unofficial theme song of the Bourne films? Every time someone so much as mentions Bourne, that music pops up into my head. It's like Hedwig's Theme for Harry Potter or something.

This post has been edited by Bond: 11 August 2007 - 12:30 AM

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

I guess I'm one of the few people that really enjoy Greengrass' direction. Ever since I saw Bloody Sunday I've been very impressed with his pseudo-documentary "you are there"-style of filmmaking. I love action films, but I don't need to see every fight or chase or whatever spelled out or in perfect clarity. I think Greengrass' style lends itself to the urgency of the action...it's almost like his camerawork happened upon a fight or a car chase as opposed to all being intricately staged for a movie. It's corny and cliche, but his style of filming seems much more "real" to me, as if I'm there, as opposed to a lot of other "action directors."

I've also never had a problem with "shaky cams." I typically prefer the more "natural" feel I personally think it gives to films.

[civilian_number_two]

I've also never had a problem with "shaky cams." I typically prefer the more "natural" feel I personally think it gives to films.

I'm sorry pants; I wasn't aware you had Parkinson's Disease and retinitis pigmentosa. When I watch a real fight, my point of view is seldom shaky and limited to a 2-foot wide frame. So for me that style when overdone doesn't feel "natural" at all.

Since the Steadicam was invented more than 30 years ago, I always find deliberately shaky camera to be gimmicky and unattractive. I don't mind when the film is pretending to be a doc, like HUSBANDS AND WIVES, but with a film like this one it's just an excuse not to fully choreograph a fight. A few such shots are typical in most action films, and yes they do create a sense of urgency, but most directorsknow to lean back on the throttle from time to time. I found the fight scenes in SUPREMACY and ULTIMATUM to be boring and confined to close-quarter wrestling, and nothing like the good "control the weapon" sequence in IDENTITY's Paris apartment. For the last two films I found a greater sense of urgency was achieved by the musical score than by the choreography or by the camera work.

BLOODY SUNDAY is an impressive film. Since its subject is a real event, the style there is warranted and effective. Someone should have told Greengrass however that each story is different and that as in all design, form should follow function. I wonder would this guy take the same approach to a romantic comedy?

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

I'm sorry pants; I wasn't aware you had Parkinson's Disease and retinitis pigmentosa. When I watch a real fight, my point of view is seldom shaky and limited to a 2-foot wide frame. So for me that style when overdone doesn't feel "natural" at all.

Well, it's just a difference of opinion. I didn't think it was even close to being "overdone."

Since the Steadicam was invented more than 30 years ago, I always find deliberately shaky camera to be gimmicky and unattractive. I don't mind when the film is pretending to be a doc, like HUSBANDS AND WIVES, but with a film like this one it's just an excuse not to fully choreograph a fight. A few such shots are typical in most action films, and yes they do create a sense of urgency, but most directorsknow to lean back on the throttle from time to time.

I guess it depends on personal preference. I find steadier shots in action films with a lot of hand to hand combat to be boring and make the fights look too staged and fake. Now by contrast, I love steady filming in an actual martial arts film to really appreciate the artistry of what's on the screen. With something like the Bourne series a slowed down fight would look too much, to me, like too many other Hollywood flicks...a bunch of actors who got a crash course in fighting trying their damndest to not scuffed up. There are, of course, exceptions to this...take the fight by the lockers in Grosse Pointe Blan. Those were two men trained in kickboxing and using very realistic fighting techniques and the steadier filming added to it. Unfortunately, that IS the exception. Unless filmmakers are attemtping to ehmphasize that something fantastic is going on a la The Matrix, I prefer the personal combat scenes in action films like the Bourne series to be frenzied a la the shaky cam.

I found the fight scenes in SUPREMACY and ULTIMATUM to be boring and confined to close-quarter wrestling, and nothing like the good "control the weapon" sequence in IDENTITY's Paris apartment. For the last two films I found a greater sense of urgency was achieved by the musical score than by the choreography or by the camera work.

I thought the camerawork during the car chase where Borune has the police car to be amazing and a nice break from the "traditional" rut that cinematic car chases have settled into for the most part over the last 20 years or so. And yes, I loved the first film and that scene, but by contrast to the later two films, I found it leaned a little bit too much towards the "these men are superhuman ninjas" side of things because it was so precise and choreographed. Obviously, we're tossing a lot of reality out with this series, but I find the "shaky cam" work to at least be a bit more of an anchor in reality and give the fights more of a sense of urgency and threat, as if anything can happen at any given time. But that's just me.

BLOODY SUNDAY is an impressive film. Since its subject is a real event, the style there is warranted and effective. Someone should have told Greengrass however that each story is different and that as in all design, form should follow function. I wonder would this guy take the same approach to a romantic comedy?

I still think he's working well within the same overall tone.

I guess I just don't understand the aversion some people have to the "shaky cam." I don't think it should be used all the time, but I loved it in these films. I've got friends who couldn't stand the "shaky" cameras of Traffic and it baffles me. I guess I just like how it looks.

[Bond]

Well, in Ultimatum, the camera was shaky in every scene! I don't understand why Greengrass wouldn't even keep the camera steady for a dialogue scene!

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Well, in Ultimatum, the camera was shaky in every scene! I don't understand why Greengrass wouldn't even keep the camera steady for a dialogue scene!

The camera definitely MOVES, but I personally wouldn't call it "shaky" in those scenes. To me, "shaky" means the camera getting tossed all over the place like it does in The Blair Witch Project...granted, the fight scenes do reach that point, but I wouldn't call the non-action scenes "shaky" at all. They're just shot with a steadicam. Again, I think it lends itself well to this type of movie...Bourne is always on the move, and so are the people after him, even if not literally doing so at every given moment. I know I'm a broken record on it at this point, but it gives the film a sense of urgency...things are always happening and people are always doing something or moving towards their goal.

Out of random curiosity, do you use smilies in every post?

[Bond]

No, I don't.

I just didn't like how, in Ultimatum, with every dialogue scene we got an over the shoulder shot of the person speaking and the back of someone's head. It was a complete waste of widescreen.

[civilian_number_two]

A Steadicam is generally steady. Those dialogue scenes looked like handheld with the operator sitting on an exercise ball. Before you think I'm joking, this is a common technique for achieving that "verite" effect you say you like. A Steadicam when handled by anyone other than Michael J Fox ought to have minimal movement. When a camera's moving about too much, it appears to me that the director didn't think the story was compelling enough so he had to resort to gimmickry. I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica and noticed they did this a lot. The also did that "reframing" gag where they zoom in or out just a tiny bit during a take. Once or twice, thius might have been cute, but the number of times they did it made me think of that scene from ARMY OF DARKNESS where Sam Raimi set up 27 zoom pulls in a row. It's just comical, and I changed the channel before I learned anything about the show.

Again, I liked ULTIMATUM, but found the action gimmicky. I'm not sure I see the distinction you're drawing between one kind of action film and another. I appreciate that Matt Damon is no martial artist, but neither was Keanu Reeves. And more to the point, Damon did well enough in the fight scenes for the first two films; why suddenly tighten the frame?

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

Out of curiosity, civ, what did you think of the camera work in Traffic? I think I found myself enjoying the shaky handheld look more in many films ever since the much-missed Homicide: Life on the Street was on. It's not something I find myself focusing on when the script is good neough, which I thought it was in the Bourne films.

And I brought up Keanu Reeves because I thought while his fight scenes in the Matrix series were entertaining enough, there was never a sense of any kind of realism...and that's perfect for those films. Hence why a steadicam-type filming was better. I preferred the more chaotic look of the latter two Bourne films because of the tone and nature of the story. I loved the first one, and it's not like the fight scenes were bad, but I personally found them looking a little too staged, especially the fight scene in the Paris apartment. Like I said, it all just comes down to personal preference.

Random question to all the "shaky cam" haters out there...what about it's use in the battles scenes of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers? One of my old roommates was so adamant about about his hatred of shaky cams he even griped about their use in that film and mini-series.

[Bond]

Well, that's more natural and obviously they were going for a documentary look.

Handheld doesn't bother me as long as it isn't overused. Its use in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was fine to me, because we never would have gotten a proper sense of tension without it. Its use in the Bourne movies, however, just made it difficult to see how Bourne could get a handle on those assassins.

Another nitpick: how the hell did that assassin after Bourne manage to get to the roof of that building in time to confront Bourne when, after the car crash, he was trapped against the windshield in his mangled car and copious amounts of blood were spewing out of his mouth?

[civilian_number_two]

TRAFFIC and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN are great examples of my point actually. First, neither Soderberg nor Spielberg relied on the technique for the entire film, and also, both directors made use of it for specific films only. There are plenty of wide shots in the battle scenes in RYAN, certainly enough to give us a sense of the whole battlefield. Spielberg didn't use the technique, which incidentally also involved special cameras designed to refract light in an arhcaic way, in his subsequent films MUNICH or THE TERMINAL, and Soderberg changes styles with every film he makes (look for his zenith in THE LIMEY).

On the other hand, Greengrass appears to be in a rut, relying on a common bag of tricks for every movie he makes. And I think there is a cost, in terms of my involvement as an audience member. If I hadn't been to Waterloo Station, I doubt I'd have had any real sense of the geography of the place for a major suspense sequence in ULTIMATUM. Similarly a rooftop chase in Tangier is laughably incomprehensible. I was happy to sit back knowing that one character would eventually reach another as the story demanded, but had no idea at any time how close they were to one another. And how interesting can that be? IMO, not very.

I suppose you didn't find the fights in ULTIMATUM "staged," and I can't talk you out of that, but I think the only reason is that you weren't ever able to see any of the fighting. The big scrap of the film, the one in Tangier, was so tight it reminded me of a Steven Segal movie. One film I saw with that hack had a knife fight in it that was shot by having the actors wave blades in front of the camera in figure 8 patterns. Then the shots were cut together with sound effects added. No choreography was ever necessary.

Another comment I'd like to add is that the Paris car chase in IDENTITY was far superior to its counterpart in ULTIMATUM. As a mitigating factor, however, I really liked the entire Moscow sequence from SUPREMACY. For high-stakes action and audience involvement, I think that's the best chase of the series.

--- Anyway that's enough from me about shaky cams. What did everyone else think about the retconning? Clever, no?

[MyPantsAreOnFire]

On the other hand, Greengrass appears to be in a rut, relying on a common bag of tricks for every movie he makes.

I think it's a bit unfair to tag him as being so limited at this point in his career since the Bourne films are really the only ones he's made that are outside of his "pseudo-documentary" slection. The camera techniques he relies on I think work amazingly well in films like United 93 and Bloody Sunday. I agree they will get tiresome if it's all he does in every type of film genre he tackles, but at this point I personally don't think he's taken on anything that far removed from what he typically does subject and tone-wise, and it doesn't look like he's shaking off his "type" any time soon with the next two films he has lined up. I can't wait to see his adaptation of [u]Imperial Life in the Emerald City[/i]. I agree he definitely seems to prefer a certain type of film, and its unlikely if we'll see him branch out from that, as opposed to filmmakers like Spielberg and Soderbergh.

Long live the shaky cam!

[civilian_number_two]

Argh; I'd meant not to say any more on this, but I've been untrue in the past as well.

I think it's fair to say his style is limited if he's only done a few films. That's more or less the definition of "limited." Out of curiosity, I looked up IMPERIAL LIFE IN THE EMERAL CITY on imdb. The first topic of discussion was "I hope they don't have the same shaky camera action." So I suppose other people are reacting to it as well; I was amused enough to post there.

I think it's worth pointing out to that this isn't really a Directorial Style. As a gimmick, it had already been tried before by other directors, so it's now pretty much just a trope. I think it was more effective when Woody Allen used in on HUSBANDS AND WIVES. Mainly I say this because his takes were long and the style led to the notion that the film was a documentary. Greengrass's films are chock full of editing and background music, so they don't look like documentaries at all. They don't in fact look real to me at all since the style calls so much attention to itself.

Hey remember the Steadicam use in Kubrick's films? FULL METAL JACKET in particular was great; the camera was right there in the action, we followed characters as they moved, and the takes were long. In among such shots were closeups, slo-mo inserts, and lots of tripod-stable wides for perspective. The music was minimal as well, and what we got there was something that looked like a doc but was controlled and choreographed as hell. And you had a real sense of what was going on!