The Bourne Identity is a thriller film based on the main character Jason Bourne who is saved by fishermen, he awakes with no recognition of who he is or where he has come from. He returns to land with the intension to find out.

 

 

How does ‘The Bourne Identity’ use the conventions of a thriller film?

Main features:

 Menace: scary music, the introduction: the film starts with the swaying of the boat at in the darkness. You are disorientated, you don’t know where you are. The fisherman saves home and find bullet holes in his back.

The sense of menace and unknown threat continues and develops into a scenario of the main character Jason Bourne being watched over by a high tech, spying agency that clearly have power and intend to hunt him down.

High level of tension and suspense: the main character Jason Bourne has clearly no recognition of who he is or where he’s come from. He attacks the man, who has clearly helped him –he  had removed his bullet, out of fright. The tension continues to build up as Jason Bourne begins to find out his identity. This is shown when he collects his high security box, and tugs at the red security curtain to hide his actions, when it is completely unnecessary, in the anonymous and exclusive bank vault.

Narrative: the story is told from Jason Bourne’s perspective and you know as much as he does, you discover his identity with him and you are just as surprised as he is when you discover people are after him. Confusion is added when Jason discovers he has multiple passports with different identity and as Jason Bourne has amnesia, you are put into the characters situation with the confusion he is faced with.

Clues: When Jason Bourne is faced in life threatening situations, the audience in shocked with his ability and skill to defend himself and Jason begins to realise that he is a dangerous man because of his strength, stamina and his violent capability.

Happy endings: The scary music dies down and is more calming. The scenery is like a holiday an there is flowers are in the background. The music is upbeat. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hero: Jason Bourne is disempowered by the power of the men back at security when they begin to overwhelm him with the amount of people after him. He has become innocent because he has no memory of who he is, which makes him innocent. What we see is a kind man with morals and with n intension to harm anybody and to protect the girl that is involved with him. The audience feels sympathy towards him because of peoples intension to kill him. You can tell he is an innocent character when he is faced with children, his moral integrity to watch over the children and to protect them show he’s a good person.

The Antagonist: We see everything through Jason Bourne’s perspective, we don’t see any reason for the people to want to harm him, they hold all his personal records and identity and get him into difficult situations. We feel that we dislike them as we see it they are hunting down innocent people. They are the active pursuers to kill Jason Bourne. They are clearly corrupt as they also lie to each other and are more concerned about saving their own backs.

Conventional Characters: There are multiple assassins who aren’t even given names, they do not even have a line in the story they are given in instruction by technology and given strict orders, and have weapons caged up with threatening weapons. The music for these scenes are fast and load which as to the tension and questioning of what they’re going to do. the camera angles get closer to their faces and the quick movement of the camera builds up the tension.

Themes: identity, loneliness, love, danger, protection.

Key Elements: cliff hangers, plot twists, red herrings, terror, adrenaline rush, anticipation, anxiety, investigations, obsession, mind games, stalking, captives/hostages, revenge, paranoia, conspiracy, ransoms, chase scenes, cover ups, espionage. The protagonist defeats the antagonist.

Titles: Each city or country they go to is titled.