Bourne Identity

The first shot you see of the doctor is a mid shot and looking down on Bourne. The surroundings are very dirty, which connotes the doctor is not the best for the job as he may not have washed his equipment. The angle of the shot is slightly low angle; this means that at this moment in time that this character has a big role in Bourne’s survival making him a powerful character for now. When you look at the doctor’s clothes they are quite dirty and this signifies he is unhygienic and Bourne is not in best environment for the state he is in. The doctor’s body language makes the viewers feel he is concentrating extremely hard and this may be because he is drunk and he finds this task hard. This is another reason for us to be worried about Bourne. The tension we feel for Bourne right now links perfectly with the thriller genre and how it is quite thrilling for us to see how Bourne will turn out. Here in the second shot the Doctor fiddles with the equipment to find the right one, but there are not a lot to choose from. They have used a close up for this so it shows the audience that the Doctor was not prepared at all for this. The shot also shows the bullet wound in Bourne’s back so they know what he is going to pull out. They cut to this after they showed the doctors expression when he saw the bullet wounds. Then they pan across the body to show the doctor is going to try and get the bullets out with the equipment that he has. The lighting in the mise-en-scene is very dim which makes the atmosphere tenser. The lighting could also connote that it is a dark time for Bourne in his life. The third shot is a mid shot showing where Bourne was a few seconds earlier. This links perfectly with the thriller genre as it is a typical for someone to suddenly disappear to someone when there back is turned. There is a shocked expression on the Doctor just before you see the table so that signifies to the audience that the Doctor is concerned for his life and slightly worried; especially after pulling bullets out of Bourne. The surgical knives on the have been scattered so this could mean he has taken one to kill the Doctor. The audience will feel all this suspense building in a matter of seconds until they see Bourne come charging into the doctor seconds later. Once again the dim flickering lights add more tension to the mise-en-scene, as they don’t know where Bourne could be. Here in another shot they have used another mid shot showing the back of Bourne and the Doctor facing the camera. They have used a two shot here and put them both in so they can show the fear in the doctors face but at the same time show how Bourne is going for him. It is a high angle camera looking down on the doctor, this connotes that the Doctor is the weaker of the two and it shows that he is scared of him. They are using a one motion camera to follow the action around the room. For a tense gritty affect, this makes us feel like we are Bourne and moving quickly and aggressively towards the Doctor. Using the one camera to follow the action links very well with the Thriller genre and this is often used when filming an action scene. In this final shot we have an over the shoulder shot each time one speaks it cuts to there the other shoulder like you are in the conversation. They are conversing between each other and the doctor asks “who are you” and then Bourne realises he has no knowledge of who he is. This is also a close up shot on Bourne’s face, it is completely blank and this shows the audience he does not know who he is and his expression signifies this. The Doctors body language towards Bourne is quite aggressive but he has done it in a way to calm Bourne down so that he will trust the doctor. Finding out that Bourne has lost his memory leaves the audience with large suspense as they want to find out exactly who he is and why he has been shot. This suspense keeps the viewers interested and hooked on the film while watching.