Bourne
A wounded unconscious man is found and when awaken, he discovers that he possesses remarkable survival abilities while suffering from retrograde amnesia. Even though his memory remains sketchy at best he quickly determines that there are individuals, a group or an organization that wants him dead. The novel, The Bourne Identity, is Robert Ludlum twelfth novel released in 1980. In the book, he uses the real life individual, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, also known as Carlos the Jackal, a Venezuelan born terrorist who was capture after he killed an informant to the French government as well as two intelligence officers. The Jackal, as recent as 1975, participated in the planning of an attack on the headquarters of OPEC in Vienna, Austria. He then led a team to carrying out the attack, which led to the deaths of three people (a policeman, an OPEC employee and a member of the Libyan delegation) and the taking of 60 hostages. This inclusion of the Jackal is the biggest difference between the novel and movie.
Universal Studios released their version of the book and they were counting on it being a blockbuster hit movie starring, Matt Damon as Bourne. The movie was well received and fans quickly became fans of the Bourne trilogy as they anticipated the next movie release date. But soon after the premiere, the Ludlum devoted began to turn on the movie blaming the differences between the novel and the movie, how could they mess with the beginning of the trilogy so unashamedly. The notable exclusion from the movie was the connection to the Jackal who plays a major character in the novels. His most noted acts of violence were the bombing of a train in France which lead to 5 dead and 77 injured, then a car-bombing in Paris with 1 dead and 63 wounded, and two more car bombings on the same day which lead to 5 more dead and 45 wounded.
As the book and movie begins with a body in the Mediterranean Sea, which is a common direction for both but then they quickly starts to navigate their way away from each other. The novel has gunfire on a boat then a body is cast into the sea then followed by an explosion, where the movie plays this scene out later in a memory flashback by the lead character, Bourne, as he has short sporadic memory reflections that he is unable to comprehend. The novel has the fishermen who pull our character from the sea with a bullets lodged in his body and head then they deliver him to a washout physician who tends to his injuries. Dr. Geoffrey Washburn and the Ile de Port Noir are deleted from the movie and are replaced with the captain of the fishing boat tending to the two bullet wounds in the back of his body. While being tended to medically in both genres, surgical implanted devices are found on his hip and these devices are dated to the period of the day, the novel had a small frame negative of microfilm whereas in the movie a tiny laser projector is found. To show the fans again how dated the genres are in the novel Bourne has to sign a card whereas the movie has him placing his right hand on a scanner that reads his palm and fingerprints to gain him access to the deposit box.
This ebb and flow of similarities and differences continues through the entire movie but have changed dramatically with the female lead, Marie who are completely unalike. In the movie there is, Marie St. Jacques, an economist with the Canadian government on a business trip and is a guest at the hotel Bourne who is a regular guest. This is where he briefly kidnaps her to use as a hostage in helping him escape but the tide has turned to her favor and she escapes. A short while later she starts to tell the police where Bourne might be located. They are not the police, rather they are the professionals trying to kill him and now want to murder her but first try to rape her. Bourne is quick to respond to Marie’s needs in a quick and deadly rescue where Marie changes her opinion of him and becomes his ally. The story line in the book also has Marie being a more developed character that uses her life experiences, contacts and education to not only help Bourne but is an integral part of the downfall of Treadstone.
Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron the screenplay writers for the movie, introduce their Marie at the United States Embassy in Zurich. The name has changed to a struggling gypsy German woman named, Marie Kreutz who is having problems with her student visa and is becoming quite vocal in a scene, which is being played out in front of Bourne as he waits in line. She then exits the embassy after she was unable to receive help with her visa and when she is by her car she encounters Bourne for the first time. Bourne, deduces that she is in need of help as is he, so he offers her $20,000 to drive him to Paris as sirens are playing in the background. At first she is ready to decline but due to the $10,000 Bourne having already toss to her she is reluctant to turn it down. Then he plays it perfectly by asking for the money back, which sets the hook into having her accept the deal. So begins the journey for Marie and Bourne as they head towards Paris uncertain of what encounters lay ahead.
The movie is full of comparisons and differences then are in the book, some are out right deletions such as the character of the Jackal and some are dramatic changes as is the case of the character Marie. But the one thing that stayed true to both stories is the development of Jason Bourne as a confused amnesia individual on his journey to discovering who he is, his relationship with Marie, why people want him dead and finding out who or what Treadstone is. Even with the modernization of the movie and the different direction taken it still possesses the kinetic flow to it as the book. No matter what your opinion is with the book or the movie there are several final points of view that need to be addressed. Books will always be more detailed oriented than a movie will ever be, mainly due to the two hours of attention you have from an audience in a theater, and Robert Ludlum was a very descriptive writer in his main characters development to the action in the stories. When one compares a book to a movie the first place in the comparison needs to be at the end when the credits are running, for this movie it clearly says that the movie is based of the novel by Robert Ludlum and not a copy.