Jason Bourne

First Hit:  Unnecessary shaky camera work got in the way of a sub-standard story about Jason Bourne.

I don’t mind shaky camera work when it adds to the excitement of a scene in a film. In some films it works really well (think “Breaking the Waves”). It can also be helpful when the audience is following someone who is running and other scenes like this. The technique becomes a mindless technique and distraction when unnecessarily used to create excitement.

The story needs to be exciting first and foremost. Paul Greengrass used a ton of unnecessary shaky camera work in this film. Examples abound, like when a sniper is setting up to shoot, the camera needed to be as still and calm as the in-breath and out-breath of a sniper making a clean shot. Internal and external landscape shots of an area so that the audience knows the the lay of the land instead of haphazard shots creating confusion for the audience.  

When I have the thought "why can’t the camera stop shaking", it is a distraction. The director doesn't want the audience thinking about why they cannot tell what is happening on the screen.

Greengrass may have used this technique because the story is less intriguing than the previous Bourne films (The Bourne Identity – 2002, The Bourne Supremacy – 2004, The Bourne Ultimatum – 2007, and The Bourne Legacy – 2012). The first three captured my attention mostly because the story was great, had passion, intrigue, and suspense. In the 2012 version, Matt Damon wasn’t playing Jason Bourne directly and therefore the film lacked the amazingness he brings to this franchise.

This version had Matt Damon back as Jason Bourne seeking to piece together his father’s death and involvement in Blackbriar while attempting to settle his own personal struggles of identity.

As an overall storyline it wasn’t the best, yet it did have a side story about today’s issue of using technology to track people and their actions. Here, the company creating software that can do this is lead by Aaron Kallor (Riz Ahmed). But the story and film are about Bourne and Damon is such a strong actor that he brings this character to life like no one else can. He makes Bourne complex, charming, physically capable, and chivalrous, or as much as a undercover CIA agent can be chivalrous.

The villain is still the agency as they believe he knows too much and will continue to expose their illegal covert programs. It was wonderful to see Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), his previous supporting agency agent, helping Jason to get additional information helping him to piece together the puzzle.

The film showing the kind of technology available to the CIA was very good and interesting. The new CIA Director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones), as always, wants Jason eliminated. He uses an Asset (Vincent Cassel) to do the dirty work and like, Bourne he’s relentless.

Another bright spot was CIA Agent Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander) who takes on the previous Pam Landy (Joan Allen) spot as head of the task force to bring Bourne in (or take him out). Lee, like Landy, connects with Bourne as a person and shows a level of compassion for his plight. One last note, I thought the car chase through downtown Las Vegas overdone and unnecessarily unrealistic.

Damon is Jason Bourne. In my eyes he’s the only guy who can pull off the character Jason Bourne because he created him. As usual, I loved his performance. Jones was OK as the crusty, old school, CIA Director but felt he was too crusty to run an agency that is filled with new progressive technology. Vikander was perfect for the part. Her strong, aggressive, and young female portrayal of a top CIA Agent in this world of progressive electronics was perfect. She was the opposite of Jones. Stiles was great to see again and her role really helped tie together Bourne and the new players in the agency. Cassel was perfect as the Asset. He does focused single minded action as good as anyone. Ahmed does a good job as being a software vendor who got into bed with the CIA and now wants out. Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse wrote a barely adequate script, but it was Greengrass’s direction that lowed the Bourne bar.

Overall:  Although shaky, it is watchable because Damon makes it work.

Black Swan

First Hit: Natalie Portman captures the character and is mesmerizing although the film is a bit excessive in its representation.

I really left the theater with two main thoughts: Portman was outstanding as Nina Sayers (Swan Queen) and is my pick for Best Actress for this year. Secondly, why did the director (Darren Aronofsky) over do the visualizations. Why did he feel he needed an overtly hammer the audience in expressing the internal pain of an obsessed ballerina?

Portman brought everything that was needed to this part. An example of this overt visualization was when Nina was getting ready to dance she removes one shoe. Her toes are stuck together because she spends so much time in her tight ballet slippers. With some pain she pulls her toes apart. Then she takes off the other shoe and Aronofsky shows us a fully webbed foot.

I didn’t need that overkill because I got the point with the first foot. This is the downside of the film; overkilling points. The amount of blood (real and perceived) in this film along with an Exorcist kind of leg breaking in one bedroom scene was also excessive. However I’m clear that the journey we take with Nina from living the life of an obsessed ballerina trying to please everyone but herself, was extraordinary.

I’ve enjoyed ballet as a season ticket holder to both the American Ballet Theater and the San Francisco Ballet. I’ve seen all forms of dance from Joe Goode to Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project. The practice it takes to perform at these levels borders on being fanatically possessed at times. The result when a performer lets the feeling and the art of the story come through them with their technical abilities can be phenomenal.

Portman captures all this but to her overall demise. She is living with her fanatical mother Erica Sayers (played by Barbara Hershey – The Queen) who wants and doesn’t want her daughter to succeed. Erica was also a dancer and at age 28 got pregnant with Nina which ended her dancing career.

Resentful yet supportive, Erica is living through, for and against her daughter’s success. She has created such an insulated world for Nina that this 20 year old girl lives in a room full of stuff animals and ballet musical boxes. But because of her relentless devotion, Artistic Director Thomas Leroy (played by Vincent Cassel – The Gentleman) selects Nina to dance his new version of Swan Lake.

The Swan Queen will dance both the white swan and black swan parts. Thomas sees Nina as the perfect white swan but says she must let go of everything inside that she uses to control her life so that she can also become the Black Swan.

Lily (played by Mila Kunis – Black Swan) a young dancer from San Francisco joins this company is the prime competition for the part because she dances the Black Swan part perfectly. She is an intuitive dancer who seduces and is not seduced.

With all the players in place we have the ballet being danced in real life as real characters while also in the performance of Swan Lake.

Portman is the best woman actress on the screen this year. The brief moments that she breaks out of her afraid obsessed filled life and gives us the Black Swan within her is perfect. It is believable, powerful and the type of range one rarely sees in a single part for an actress in a single film. There are just a few glimpses of this extraordinary movement, but sitting in the audience, I felt it. That is the mark of this performance – I felt her fully. Hershey was equally great to watch as the mother who wanted her daughter to both fail and succeed where she herself didn’t. Kunis is wonderful to watch as the free spirited Lily. Cassel was perfect Artistic Director pushing things to the limit with his cast. Mark Heyman and Andres Heinz wrote a very good screen play. Director Darren Aronofsky over did his job in some aspects of the film as previously explained, however he was masterful at getting strong performances from his cast and the mood of the film, dark, not slick, and glaring at times was very good.

Overall: I cannot forget Portman’s performance and that makes it worthwhile.