BAKER ON BOURNE - CS contributor Eric Baker takes issue with me and the esteemed critic Stanley Kauffman with regard to the realism of The Bourne Identity. I'll post a response after his comments.

* I'm the biggest Stanley Kauffmann fan in the world, especially since reading a collections of his reviews and essays, Regarding Film. In fact, other than M. F. K. Fisher, I think he might be one of the most compelling writers of the last century. But sometimes, like with the quotation below, my BS sensors go off. Kauffmann's prose can flow like honey, but it can also get gummed up. I liked The Bourne Identity as well, but the only thing that's ineluctable about the photography is that it is gimmicky during the action sequences. It doesn't certify anything, except that MTV-style jump-cut editing is necessary when your action star (Matt Damon) is trying to beat up baddies bigger than he is. I'm all for realism -- I find those movies to be consistently the best because they are the easiest to relate to. And in end, I think Kauffmann agrees; here's an excerpt of his review of Pulp Fiction (newly released on DVD):

"Some of the action strains belief in a picture that dwells mostly in the naturalistic realm. On her night out, Thurman takes a life-threatening overdose of heroin, is revived at someone's house with a jolt of adrenaline straight to the heart, then is taken home by Travolta and dropped off as if it had been an ordinary date. I suppose there's meant to be some burlesque edge to this sequence, but even so, it's pretty farfetched. More matter-of-fact glitches: guns are fired in residential areas, and no neighbors seem to hear them. Willis kills a man, wipes the gun free of his fingerprints, and then puts his prints on a doorknob. etc."

To be clear, if I was rating The Bourne Identity on the Tomatometer, it would be "fresh." But I don't think Kauffmann is being completely truthful about one of the major downfalls with the movie. People were laughing during the action scenes when I saw it. *

CS response: Eric and I have had this debate before and I'd be curious to know what readers think. There were laughs during some of the first few Matt Damon fight scenes when I saw the movie too. But Eric was and is still wrong to construe these laughs as having anything to do with a lack of realism. When Damon quickly unarms two officers in a park, for example -- the first time we see any hand-to-hand combat -- the humor stems from the fact that he is just as startled as we are at how skilled he is as a fighter. (Remember, he has amnesia and at this point doesn't have any idea who he is or why he has this ability.) Liman deliberately pauses on Damon's reaction so we can see the surprise on his face. To repeat a phrase, we're not laughing at him -- we're laughing with him. Eric seems to think it's unintentional comedy, whereas I say Liman got exactly the reaction he wanted from the audience. I also wouldn't describe any of the cutting in The Bourne Identity as "MTV-style jump-cut editing." Liman does, I think, speed up the action during some of the fight scenes. But jump cuts? I'd have to watch it again, but I don't think so. In fact, and maybe someone can help me out here, doesn't the fight scene in question occur in one take? As Kauffman said, "When Bourne disposes handily of three armed opponents, we see it, don't we?" We do. And the beauty of it is that Liman doesn't try to disguise it with a flurry of cuts.

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