Next time the dinner party conversation stalls, throw in this question: which
JB is best, Bond or Bourne? The air will quickly fill with opinion as men –
especially men – align themselves with the figure in the tuxedo who suavely
introduces himself as “Bond, James Bond”; or with Bourne, the unimposing guy
in the fisherman’s jumper who doesn’t have any chat-up lines and can’t even
remember his own name.
It’s five years since the release of The Bourne Identity, a film that helped
redefine espionage thrillers. Centring on an amnesiac assassin named Jason
Bourne, played by Matt Damon, it summed up the angst of a generation
searching for an identity.
Bourne is on the run from a CIA “black ops” mob, and is pursued across Europe,
treating cinema audiences to some impressive stunts and action sequences
along the way. Meanwhile, he’s trying to answer the same question as the
rest of us: “Who am I?” With the riddle still unresolved, he’s back later
this month in The Bourne Ultimatum in the third part of a franchise that is
challenging Bond’s dominance.
On the face of it, Bourne and Bond are polar opposites. Bond is MI6’s top
agent; Bourne is being hunted down by his former employer, the CIA. Bond
always gets the girl; Bourne loses his girl to an assassin’s bullet. Bond
has no compunction about killing; Bourne has nightmares over what he’s done.
The contrast says a lot about their creators. Ian Fleming, an old Etonian,
invented a hero to reflect the values of the day: successful, debonair,
someone who kills as ruthlessly as he discards women. Robert Ludlum, a
struggling actor turned writer, wanted an antihero, an outcast who was
hunted, unsure of himself and paranoid.
The two authors lived a generation and a continent apart, but both were
obsessives, prolific writers, heavy smokers (Fleming favoured custom-made
cigarettes; Ludlum, Kool menthols). Fleming wrote 14 Bond books but saw just
two made into films before a fatal heart attack, aged 56, in 1964.
Octopussy and The Living Daylights were short stories published posthumously.
Later his estate licensed the Bond character to a succession of writers
(including Kingsley Amis, Charlie Higson, one of the creators of The Fast
Show, and most recently to Sebastian Faulks, the novelist, set to publish
Devil May Care next year).
Ludlum turned to writing in 1970 when his acting career stagnated. He quickly
became a master of his trade, selling more than 200m books – a figure
reportedly exceeded only by J K Rowling. He died in 2001, with a rattling
smoker’s cough, a year before the first Bourne film was released. Eric Van
Lustbader, a writer with a name like one of Ludlum’s characters, is among
those credited with the 12 “Ludlum” books that have appeared since.
Interestingly Bourne and Bond went global only after undergoing complete
makeovers in the wake of their creators’ deaths. The Bond films were in any
case only ever loosely based on Fleming’s narratives and when the stories
ran out (The Living Daylights was the last one, in 1987), the film-makers
cranked out another half dozen or so soundalike titles such as Licence to
Kill.
Likewise, the film adaptation of the Bourne trilogy bears limited relation to
Ludlum’s books, in which Bourne’s arch-foe is Carlos the Jackal (who hasn’t
featured in the Bourne films). Tony Gilroy, the American screen-writer, took
the basic idea of a character dragged from the Mediterranean with bullets in
his back and a total loss of memory and wove around him new characters and
plots.
Reinvented and reinvigorated, Bond and Bourne are cornering the market in
espionage films. Casino Royale, the latest in the 007 series, grossed almost
£294m, the highest earning Bond film ever (and the 36th highest grossing
film of all time). The first two Bourne films took a not too shabby £245m at
the box office and doubtless played a role in Bond’s latest success. In
Casino Royale, the scriptwriters dumped the slapstick and wisecracks and
adopted elements of film noir that have become Bourne’s trademark. Hence it
was a much darker, bloodier Bond film than its predecessors.
Up until then, Albert “Cubby” Bro-colli and Barbara, his daughter, created
lavish special effects, often using CGI for gimmicks such as the “invisible”
Aston Martin in Die Another Day. Bond specialised in taking out his
opponents in grisly but imaginative ways as, for example, in Live and Let
Die when Roger Moore forced Yaphet Kotto’s Kananga to swallow a compressed
air bullet, causing him to swell up like a giant beach ball and explode,
remarking casually: “He always had an inflated opinion of himself.”
The Bourne camp, meanwhile, moved as far as it could in the opposite
direction, avoiding CGI and adopting a shaky hand-held camera style to
create a sense of realism. “Every time someone suggested doing something
that was standard in the action world, we said we had to do the exact
opposite,” says Frank Marshall, one of the Bourne producers.
Bourne is seldom armed with anything more deadly than a ballpoint pen. He
shows how to clone a mobile phone in seconds and how to blow up a house by
disconnecting a gas pipe then shoving a magazine into a toaster for a
delayed timer.
Then there are the cars. Bond’s cars are all gleaming metal and clever
gadgets. By contrast, Bourne drives a clapped out Leyland Mini with one wing
hanging off in the first film. In the second he is pursued through Moscow in
a battered Volga taxi. If Bourne arrived in one of his mangled wrecks at
007’s casino in Monte Carlo the security would suspect he was a car bomber.
For realism, all the Bourne chases take place in the kind of congested city
streets with which audiences are familiar. According to Damon, the
inspiration was The French Connection, which contained one of the best
pursuits ever committed to celluloid.
The most important difference, though, is the inner man. In the 1960s, when
Bond’s persona was formed, heroes didn’t cry or agonise over mistakes. Now
it’s okay to have a soft side. Bourne struggles with demons from his past.
In the Supremacy, for instance, he seeks out his victim’s daughter so he can
apologise. That’s a tricky one for Bond to match. It’s difficult to see 007
transforming himself into a sensitive man by saying sorry for kicking Oddjob
in his sensi-tiveman-parts before electrocuting him with a cut cable in
Goldfinger.
Both Fleming and Ludlum reportedly had links to the respective intelligence
services of their two countries. Fleming worked in naval intelligence where,
among other deeds, he is credited with Operation Goldeneye (later the title
of a Bond film), a plan to help defend Gibraltar during the second world war
in the event that fascist Spain joined the Axis powers and invaded the
British colony.
Ludlum’s novels contained details that implied an inside knowledge of the
workings of the CIA, though he always denied any involvement. In terms of
realism, though, Bourne has the edge. In The Bourne Identity, when a CIA
director disapproves of the methods being used to try and assassinate
Damon’s rogue operative, his subordinate turns on him and snarls, “So why
don’t you book a conference room and talk him to death.” In The Bourne
Ultimatum, a former field operative tells his desk-bound rival, “Don’t
second guess an operation from an armchair.”
Like the drab War Office corridors in the film of Len Deighton’s Ipcress File
it smacks of the truth, far more so than the shiny interior of Bond’s MI6
headquarters where 007 shares a tease with Moneypenny before M sends him off
to blow up Blofeld’s underwater HQ in a mini-sub.
All of which leaves the most important question: who would win in a fight?
Bourne is an expert in krav maga, the martial art used by Mossad. In
close-quarter fighting he’s deadly. Sadly, that would be no match for Bond,
who could press a button and dispatch Bourne with a harpoon through his
fisherman’s jumper.
“It’s a tough question,” admits Damon. “I wouldn’t bet against Bourne. Bond
does have all those gadgets, though.” So you can see there’s plenty to fuel
the debate. Personally I’m a Bourne man – at least until I’m given the
chance to drive an Aston Martin.
A tale of two spies
JAMES BOND
Employer MI6
Women. Innumerable, including Honey Rider (Ursula Andress) Pussy Galore
(Honor Blackman) and Jinx Johnson (Halle Berry)
Weapons Beretta, later replaced by the German-made Walther PPK
Style Brioni Roma suits, Turnbull and Asser shirts, shoes by John Lobb
Cars Aston Martins, Lotus Esprit, BMW Z8
JASON BOURNE
Employer (ex): CIA
Women Marie Kreutz (Franka Potente), Bourne’s girlfriend, is shot by an
assassin, leaving him companionless
Weapons Krav Maga martial art, plus anything handy: Biro, electrical
flex, rolled up magazine
Style Jeans, T shirt, ex-army jacket
Cars Clapped out Leyland Mini, Volga taxi, Chevy Impala
