Escape Routes

January 12th, 2010

Public and private infrastructure in action (imagined and real)

Posted by Dylan Reid

The Twitterverse recently led me to an interesting blog post that pointed out how, in the Bourne movies, the Jason Bourne character “uses public infrastructure as a superpower.”

A battered watch and an accurate U-Bahn time-table are all he needs for a perfectly-timed, death-defying evasion of the authorities. … Bourne wraps cities, autobahns, ferries and train terminuses around him as the ultimate body-armour.

The writer contrasts this with a character like James Bond who is backed by plentiful resources and so uses powerful, private high-tech gadgets to pursue his ends.

It makes sense — Bourne is a man with almost no resources, and public infrastructure is built to give those who have few resources a range of potential activity comparable to those whose resources are plentiful.