9 Shot Analysis: The Bourne Legacy.

The Bourne Legacy is a 2012 American action thriller film directed by Tony Gilroy. The film is based around Aaron Cross who is a member of Operation Outcome, a US Defence Department black ops program which employs pills referred to as chems that enhance the physical and mental abilities of field operatives. Cross is assigned to Alaska for a training exercise, where he must survive certain activities and traverse rugged terrain in order to arrive at a remote cabin.

The purpose of the opening sequence is to:

1. Communicate narrative enigmas to the audience that they want answers to.

2. Introduce the audience to the main protagonist and the films setting.

The sequence begins with an underwater long shot of the figure of what looks to be a man swimming through the water. This shot is super slow mo to add dramatic effect right from the beginning. The shot is slowed down so much that you can only see the slightest movement of the water. This person is so dark on the front of his body that we can’t make out who it is and this is because the only light source in this scene is the natural lighting that is coming from the sun and this is placed directly behind him. This creates a narrative enigma for the audience as they increasingly want to know who this person is. Directly after this shot there is a close up of a tube that is tied down under the water and this instantly creates another narrative enigma for the audience as we don’t yet know what this tube is and what it contains. We know that this shot is directly linked with the previous shot because of the sound bridge between both. The diegetic sound of the water and the non-diegetic music both carry over and help the scene flow and help the audience to follow along. The shot of the tube lasts for quite a long time and for the large part of this time it is the only thing in show. To us this connotes that this tube is of high importance due to the camera focusing on it for this amount of time. After about six seconds a hand enters the frame and takes the tube. This is the hand of the unknown man that we saw in the first shot. As the man rips the tube from the rope there is ping sound that dominates the sound mix and a large amount of reverb has been added to this sound for dramatic effect in post production. The third shot in the opening sequence acts as the establishing shot. The super imposed text that comes up in the bottom right of the frame informs us that the scene is set in Alaska, it also gives us some suggestion of who this person works for and what he is doing as it says “Special operations group training site”. This unidentified person must be training for the special operations group.

In shot 4 for the first time we can really see this underwater character as he comes out of the water.  He is clutching the red tube that we can now see a lot clearer and as we know this is a training site, these kind of tubes normally contain information on what the next task for this man is going to be so as one question is answered another one is asked, what is this man’s mission? We can see that after the shot of him coming out of the water our unknown character is dominating the screen time signifying to us that this character is important in the story and is most likely the main protagonist. Also we can see that our character is well prepared and well equipped for the training site that he is currently working in, we see that he is well prepared because he has bought a thermal blanket with him to keep himself warm in the cold conditions around him and he has also created a fire to keep himself warm as soon as he gets out of the water witch is a clever move as the conditions he is in it is easy to get frost bite. These kinds of techniques are ones that a trained professional would use connoting to us that maybe he isn’t new to this.

In the next shot we see a close up of the character looking up in to the distance This intimate framing really lets us get in to this mans feelings. To us it seems like he is thinking the same thing as the audience, why he is at this training site. He then looks down and closes his eyes while wrapped in his thermal blanket looking uncomfortable, this again helps show us how cold these conditions must be. In the next shot we see the camera slowly zooming out and away from where the character is standing around the fire that he has made. While the camera is zooming out it helps give the audience a little bit more perspective in terms of where he is. As the camera continually zooms out we see that he is situated miles from civilisation in the middle of nowhere. This adds to the earlier enigma questioning why he is where he is. In the background the musical score which consists of harps and violins builds up with a drum beat to create and epic feel while the camera is zooming out and showing the audience the setting of the scene. Once the music has fully built up super imposed titles come onto the screen showing the film name ‘The Bourne Legacy’.

Post By:
Josh Barrett
Metehan Hizli
Josh Shea