In this essay, I compared the book, “The Bourne Identity” by Robert Ludlum and the film of the same name, directed by Doug Liman. The main character Jason Bourne was played by Matt Damon and Marie St. Jacques is played by Franka Potente. The book and movie were extremely different from each other. The book had more detail of the overall story, easier to comprehend and had character build up. While the movie seemed to only be interested in the action. I thought the book to be more fulfilling in its story and the movie to be predictable and tedious (considering I fell asleep).
It didn’t take long to notice they were completely different. I wasn’t prepared for the movie to be so off from the book though. The plot was the same, which was Jason Bourne trying to find out his identity, but the obstacles and events that happened were opposite from one another. I felt like the book describes times and settings of different scenes better, because the movie seemed like they crammed all the different places set in the book together. Some character’s were forgotten such as Geoffrey Washburn and Marquis de Chamford.
The book was trimmed from some main scenes that revealed characteristics of Jason Bourne that showed his talents and feelings. The movie also created new or remodeled characters, like Marie St. Jacques. Which made it harder to follow after reading the book. Jason Bourne was almost the same character in both the film and the book but still the book elaborated on him more than the film. Already into the movie I found it to not be as flowing and interesting as the book. One character I was looking forward to seeing was the doctor Geoffrey Washburn.
I found him to have been a great asset to the character Jason Bourne since through out the book Jason Bourne would have visions/flashbacks of Washburn’s words of wisdom which helped him and gave him strength through out his quest to find his identity. I think the Film would have been better with the doctor Geoffrey Washburn’s intelligent dialect and discoveries. For example how he saw that Jason Bourne had alterations done to his face that made him blend in with the world so he would never be looked at twice.
Washburn studied and made Jason Bourne wait until he thought he was fit to go out into the world, for instance he made him go on a fishing trip with the hardest fishing crew around to prove his was ready. As always, Jason Bourne proved he was ready for anything. Geoffrey Washburn was never seen or mentioned in the movie which like I said was a great disappointment, because that was the upbringing of Jason Bourne. He is partly responsible to creating the new Jason Bourne. He is also the a great help to Jason Bourne while he tries to find out who he was, and what he was.
Another thing that is in the book, is the character Marie St. Jacques who was first Bourne’s hostage. Who was in Swedish women working for the Canadian government. In the book she was very intelligent and sharp. She was able to escape from Bourne and then was caught by the cops. She was used by the cops to find Jason and once they found him, they tried to kill her. Though to her surprise Bourne had been following her and saved her. She then felt like she had to be by his side and help him find his identity and then quickly fell in love with him.
None of what I said above happened in the film. In the film She was bribed into helping Bourne and was just a petty girl that needed cash to stay in Sweden. She liked Jason Bourne throughout the film from beginning to end unlike the book. It is the same in both the book and the movie that she moved and never stayed in the same place for long. For my conclusion, I found the book to be more entertaining and spontaneous because I never knew what was going to happen next.
The movie I thought to be disappointing by the lack of intimate detail and poor script dialog meaning I felt that the characters didn’t have the chemistry like they did in the book. In the book I felt that I knew the characters where as in the film it felt like they were just thrown there for money making purposes. Overall the book is better and I would recommend it to anyone and the film was just another cool action flick which I can still recommend to anyone that happens to enjoy action.
