Mine either. Bourne 2 was the least good of the three films. "Ultimatum" being the best. It kind of shows the importance, but also limitations of, directors on modern films.

The first Bourne film is better than 2, in part because of the slightly more varied, almost idiosyncratic, stylistics of director Doug Liman. However, Greengrass, to my surprise, seems to somehow get into his stride on his second (the third overall) film, and produces the best of the three films with "Ultimatum".

A part of "Supremacy" I liked was the end bit (just before the very end where he's in New York spying on Joan Ellen). When he offers his regrets to the daughter of the parents he killed; it was a surprisingly effective and sincere emotional scene in a film that I didn't expect would deliver that kind of emotion. Plus the scene finishes with that cool shot - of a Russian street in the snow if I remember correctly.

Kids: Don't do drugs.

Charles says: "The interesting aspect of Jason Bourne, which keeps him being just another fantastic superspy in the mold of James Bond is that while his super-abilities come from his secretive training, his morality comes from no longer being able to recall the ends for which he was trained. Thus, the narrative thrust of the trilogy: while trying to find out who and what he is and why a top secret offshoot of the CIA wants him dead, he tries to make amends for various assassinations he performed, but can only remember as abstractions without their ideological content."

Well, in the second film, as I mentioned, the audience gets the first concrete depiction that Jason actually did bad things when you see him kill the Russian couple - especially when he callously dispatches the wife in a manner strongly at odds with the usual expected behaviour of an American action hero. This aspect is confirmed towards the end of the third film, as Charles says in his blog review.

In the first film, we see the "origin" of Jason Bourne the amnesiac, in that at the end we see he cannot bring himself to kill his target because the victim's children are looking on. But wouldn't this fit in with what you say in your blog about sympathy, Charles? This act is more a case of what we "non-communists and members of a non-totalitarian, liberal state" would like to believe we would do, rather than an explanation of why someone like Bourne would suddenly act morally.

Hmm, hadn't thought of that. I definitely agree with you. Tony Gilroy was a screenwriter on all 3 films, so I wonder if the change in direction with the character was due principally to Greengrass coming on. Gilroy's a good writer, though; the character arc in MICHAEL CLAYTON was nuanced and justified.

Kubrick, empathic? I suppose for A Clockwork Orange, Lolita. I wouldn't link it to his aesthetic coldness specifically though. What's the full spectrum. Sympathy on the warm end, then Empathy, then ... what? I feel like empathy would be in the middle. Kubrick seems more in the "what" category. You empathize with Kubrick's characters inasfar as you empathize with any protagonist of any movie -- by default. His tonal iciness is what moves it out of a category of recognizable empathy to my mind. Trainspotting which has a heavy CO influence elicits a lot of empathy. Even a few moments of sympathy, but mostly empathy I'd say. Lyne's LOLITA is a tougher call. Wouldn't seem it's always dictated by just the movie or director itself, the level of sympathy vs. empathy. That's part of the problem; one might sympathize with a work or character with a wayward observer then attributing that sympathy as a deliberate act on the part of the artist, where maybe the artist just handled the characters really well.

CO is just so formal though, like all Kubrick's work. I like Kubrick but I've never cared a lick what happens to any of his characters, particularly. Maybe that's just his effect on me.

Better Tomorrow isn't particularly exciting when run alongside a later Woo gun-fu like The Killer or Hard Boiled, but I still think the scene where Chow Yun-Fat shoots up the gang at the diner is one of Woo's best. It just feels like the sequence that launched everything we'd later see in The Killer.

K

Well, Barry in BARRY LYNDON, Dave in 2001, Privates Pyle and Joker in FULL METAL JACKET, Johnny Clay in THE KILLING, and Wendy in THE SHINING are all characters who elicit a good deal of justified audience identification. I can't imagine these stories functioning as well as they do without our caring about what happens to them. The identification happens in different ways, of course, Dave is coolly professional throughout 2001, and it's more his circumstances as one lone human being faced with end product of our technological advancement, whereas Johnny is a sad loser just trying to catch a break, however fucked up his attempts. I know what you're saying about default identification, but that just gets you into the movie; the movie has to sustain it.

CLOCKWORK ORANGE's Alex is different, in that too close of identification with him would be a sign of sociopathy. His feelings are fucked up. But, if the movie works, one should still feel the terror of his brainwashing, despite who he is, that what's being done to him isn't justified by what he's done.

Maybe I'm easy to please, but I see sustaining it as the default; a better achievement would be to develop it. Success of such development seems largely dependent on the nature of the recipient audience, of course. Kubrick is an ideas man, and that's fine, but I experience little empathy for his characters. It's not Kubrick's lack of sympathy that leaves me indifferent to them, though. It's that they're not very interesting or believable. What's more interesting (to me) than his characters is the ideas they're puppeteering, and Kubrick's distinctive visual and spatial approach to any given material. It's only Dave's situation that makes him and what he represents interesting; not Dave himself. See also my empathy (though definitely not sympathy) to Stephen King's clumsy assessment of Kubrick as not understanding people. No wait; that was Lynch, I guess. But given King's reaction to The Shining let's assume it applies to Kubrick too.

K

Wendy from SHINING is not believable? And she’s just "puppeteering" an idea? Don't you think that assessment’s a bit harsh, maybe?

Yeah, but I think that's exactly Charles' point: Dave's circumstances make him interesting, and ultimately the identifiable 'hero' (ie, eliciting justified audience identification), in our eyes. He isn't the hero by default so much, as the hero by contingency. If you prefer, he starts as the person you empathise with by default, but develops into the hero by predicament.

Well, I mean, I don't think so. Like most Kubrick characters, she's paper thin and not especially likable due to her affected artificiality (or at least the affected artificiality of the context in which she's placed.) In a weird way I identify more with Jack and his alienation. But they all seem relatively empty of human content, so it strikes me as odd to build any kind of argument around Kubrick's use of empathy, I guess. To Charles it may be that empathy with the characters and empathy with the ideas or themes are one in the same, as he seems readier to embrace films in which the two are practically indecipherable from one another.

Yeah, but I could say the same of the dude in CELLULAR. But that Dave's circumstances are more interesting and artfully constructed, I'd certainly agree.

K

Charles,

"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is without a doubt the best film I've seen this year. It's as good as any of Morris's docs, which are an obvious influence."

Now that 2007 is over, I'll go ahead and say it: Away from Her is the best film of 2007 (or, er, at least the best 2007 film that *I* saw...); The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is the second-best.

Matthew