Bloodied and desperate, Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) smashes a stolen taxi through traffic as Russian police chase him.That’s The Bourne Supremacy’s (2004) now-famous chaotic car chase in Moscow we are talking about. It’s quite hard to forget, really.And one of the reasons why is that its famously unsteady camera makes you dizzy. It shakes, veers, and shivers as if it’s desperately trying to hold on to the backseat. And since you are trapped inside the storm, instead of observing from a safe and expansive vantage point, every crash, swerve, and metal slam feels magnified. This sequence immediately sparked a debate that has persisted for years: was this a brilliant or a disastrous use of style?The unsteady camera and frantic editing gave some people an adrenaline rush that no other movie could match. Others found it nauseating—a challenge to spatial awareness. In either case, viewers were shaken when they left theatres.And that’s what truly matters. Whether the style was a hit or a dud, The Bourne Supremacy changed the way action movies were filmed and edited for the next twenty years. Action movies began to resemble lived-in chaos at this point, rather than neatly choreographed scenes.The Hollywood Action Scene Before BourneThe Age of ClarityHollywood action had a completely different grammar before 2004. For instance, in Mission: Impossible II (2000), director John Woo used operatic slow-motion to stage balletic gunfights. Wachowskis choreographed every kick and bullet-time dodge in The Matrix (1999) with impeccable wide-lens precision. The edits were fluid, and the camera...
Published By: NoFilmSchool - Yesterday