Daily Dialogue — January 31, 2015

Bourne: I’m not making this up. These are real (passports). Who has a safety deposit box full of money, six passports and a gun. Who has a bank account number in their hip. I come in here and the first thing I’m doing is catching the sightlines and looking for an exit.
Marie: I see the exit sight too and I’m not worried. You were shot. People do all kinds of weird and amazing things when they are scared.
Bourne: I can tell you the licence plate numbers of all six cars outside. I can tell you that our waitress is left handed. I can tell you that the guy sitting up at the counter weighs 215 pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know the best place to look for a gun is the cab with the gray truck outside. And at this altitude I can run for a half mile flat out before my hands start to shake. Now why would I know that. How can I know that and not know who I am.

— The Bourne Identity (2002), screenplay by Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, book by Robert Ludlum

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Espionage. Today’s suggestion by Michael Waters.

Trivia: The name Bourne came from Ansel Bourne, a preacher in Rhode Island, the first documented case of “dissociative fugue”, a condition not unlike dissociative amnesia or dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). One day in 1887 he forgot who he was, started a new life in Pennsylvania under the name Brown, and opened a convenience store. About three months later, he woke up and not only remembered his life as Bourne, but forgot all of his life as Brown… and needless to say was quite confused as to why he was in Pennsylvania.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary by Michael: “Jason Bourne doesn’t sit still a lot. In this rare sitting scene he is opening up to Marie because, as he previously explained she is the only person he knows. The point of the scene isn’t just to explain to Marie all the spy things he does but to put her (and the audience) in his chair for a moment and see things from his POV. There is also a nice setup and payoff in this scene. In a later scene when Bourne already knows where to find a gun, you don’t even question why because it has already been setup in this scene.”

If you have a suggestion for this week’s theme, please post in comments.

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