Is Bourne new cinema or queasy movie making?

Peter at Shooting by numbers picked up this post - an interesting discussion over at Vanity - about Bourne and whether it has raised the stakes in movie making or is queasy movie making.

Some of you may remember I had been in talks with Greengrass' PA about an interview which at the last moment fell through, but I'm hoping to be lucky in the future.

Not quite Bourne, but this month I'll kick off the big interviews on the subject of multimedia with a key figure and an interesting, I hope bent to the interview process.

Anyway that's for another day


Bourne Magic or Sleight of hand

I'd say to a growing band of visual story tellers, video journalists and indeed film makers I know (very few :)) Greengass' work represents something significant.

That it attracts a wide array of opinions, more often than not evoking discussion about the craft of film making, is part testimony.

Film making irrefutably is a living art and every director possesses a DNA, unique or recombinant, which either adds to the gene pool or not.

Pudovkin and Eisenstein which was raised as a post on Variety's post and is often wheeled out when speaking genres isn't contestable alongside Greengrass.

They are the Eves or Adams, much studied and dissected in film schools and in which thousands following have paid hommage one way or another e.g. BattleShip P. and The Untouchables.

The kinetic-aesthetic look Greengrass rides us along in Bourne has strands from a milestone visual shift in the 90s with US drama Homicide - Life on the Street (handheld) and Bochco's NYPD Blue, where the plane of filmmaker frees up again and the viewer appears almost to be onset caught up in the frenzy.

Peter Yates' Bullitt freed up areas of film directing before and many others have done since.

Hit TV series 24 does handheld, in some parts even with a DVCam - see if you can spot it.

For videojournalists like myself , Paul and his team up the ante.

There's a photojournalistic quality and an added energy within the lens (those movements), let alone the scene, that has a visceral quotient a bit like Marmite (British spread) you either absolutely love it or you absolutely don't.

Personally, I am hugely wowed, as are students from the Masters programme I teach - a position which obviously won't be the same elsewhere.

But just as other directors and movies have influenced a genre, Greengrass has done something with the spy narrative and dramatic film (U93) that will yield comparisons alongside other directors and films I reckon for a long time to come.

Bourne......

The Bourne Ultimatum DVD..witth explosive bonus content...300....Apocalypto......Blood Diamonds..

Long nite in deconstructing how did they do that.

I think I'm going to re-mail Paul Greengrass; missed an interview with him by a whisker last time.

Ok loading Bourne..where's the popadoms

direction of the director

Busy day tomorrow, Twickenham to watch England vs France - Ruggers ie Rugby. A truly good friend of mine has comp tickets for the match. It's going to be a truly heroic one. England are in good form but France their old nemesis won't give an inch.

Barry, my buddy and I have just shared a good laugh; the last time we went to a match. It was South Africa against Brazil when we lived in Johannesburg.

We got there late so the only way to get to our seats was to run across the pitch, with some 40,000 people seated waiting for the national anthem.

"Man, please what ever you do don't trip", I said.

Ruggers is one of those Brit affairs. My US friends always tutut when I bring it up. "Hey man, there's Rugby and real football", they add.

Yep even David Beckam has learnt to call the lesser known sport, soccer @!&*

But Football? My most memorable recollection, somewhere in the 80s. Marcus Allen, playing for the LA Rangers. I'm a dirt poor student watching the game, when the electricity cuts.

It ran on 50 pence piece slots; you know a bit like finding a dime. Point is I didn't have one, so I sat watching this blank screen, screaming quitely.

Superbowl receiver-play touch downs. It still hurts today ( David gedda life!)

After Ruggers we're off to add to the Bourne's coffers. It's already grossed the GDP of Russia. But here's where I go to school again.

Film school, journalism practice class, they all help, but nothing beats watching a film and trying to get into the head of the director, such that you anticipate shots and angles.

Greengrass, the director, has one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants styles, so I don't expect a mind meld. But it can be fun or annoying.

Often it means I'll watch a film again; on DVD to enjoy its scond time around. That said very few films have me returning again and again to look at the superb cinematography and direction.

The more recent ones include: Black Hawk Down, Man o Fire, A river Runs Through it (great Fly fishing shots) and Bourne Supremacy. Tomorrow I'll most likely add Ultimatum to my list.

DC and during an interview with former CIA boss James Woolsey I ask him about Spy Films: "What does he think?"

Woolsey: "Oh they're nothing near what we do".

Guess the audience cares very little about that.

Time's threesome

Copy of Time subscription dropped through post. OMG you mean you pay to read it???

Three snippets inside: delicious, fab, studied.

How the Bourne Boys keep it real
The bit where Greengrass hooks up with Matt Damon after the studio had set up a meeting:
"At London's Heathrow Airport, with £15 in his pocket, Greengrass realized, "I'd better get some money, 'cause I'm taking out one of the world's great movie stars." His cash card was overdrawn. "So I spent the whole meeting with him thinking, Please don't order the steak."

Outward Bound - a profile of David Milliband, British Foreign Secretary
""He's the Foreign Secretary? He's so young!" exclaimed social activist Atta ul Haq"
Adding he can't be more than 30. Milliband 42, suggest short of dying his hair what is one to do?

And Woman Man, Death God
Woody Allen discusses Ingmar Bergman who died recently.
Said Bergman to Woody recounting story: "He ( Bergman) would show up on set and not know where to put the camera".

Incidently I'm so glad Time saw fit not to prefix Ingmar with "director". Reminds me once flicking through the UK's TV presenter handbook. Huh! there's my picture, I shrugged to a friend. Then we got to Sir David Frost.

It was a blank page, no bio, simply, Sir David Frost, with his agencies telephone number below.

I mean if you don't know who Frost or Bergman is, well!