The Bourne Identity, 2002
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
Paris flights: Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport
Stay: Hotel Regina, 2 Place des Pyramides,(tel : +33 (0)1.42.60.31.10) (Métro: Tuileries; Pyramides)
Visit: La Grande Arche de la Défense
Visit: Mykonos
Trivia
Sequels The Bourne Supremacy moves largely to Berlin, while The Bourne Ultimatum is filmed in London, Madrid and Tangier.
The Bourne Identity filming location: Jason Bourne arrives in Paris: Quai de la Tournelle, Paris
The first of the Bourne franchise trots around Europe, supposedly in France and Switzerland but most of the film was shot in Paris and around Prague in the Czech Republic.
The opening scene of amnesiac Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) rescued from the Mediterranean by a fishing crew was filmed, not out in the ocean, but with a boat tied to the harbour of Imperia, on the coast of northwest Italy in the Liguria region (the raging storm was added digitally).
Imperia consists of two historical districts – Porto Maurizio and Oneglia, which lie on either side of the River Impero. Recovering, but still with no memory of his past, it’s at the neighbouring harbour of Oneglia that Bourne is put ashore.
The Bourne Identity filming location: the Parisian apartment of Jason Bourne: 104 avenue Kléber, Paris
With only the details of a numbered Swiss bank account, Bourne heads to ‘Zurich’. In fact, the city in which he arrives is Prague, where he discovers fearsome combat skills when a couple of Swiss cops hassle him for sleeping on a park bench. The park is Prague’s Kampa Park on Kampa Island, alongside Certovka stream south of Charles Bridge.
The ‘US Embassy’, at which Bourne first meets Marie (Franka Potente), was a defunct branch of HypoBank about to be redeveloped as a luxury hotel. With the promise of $20,000, Bourne persuades Marie to drive him to Paris. The snowy road along which they drive is in Cesky Sibir (Czech Siberia), outside Prague.
The Bourne Identity filming location: the ‘Treadstone’ safe house: 2 Place du Marché St Catherine, Paris
Bourne and Marie spend their first night in Paris in the car, parked on the Quai de la Tournelle, on the Left Bank opposite Ile Saint Louis (this is where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy catch the boat in Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset).
Bourne visits his apartment, and discovers that somebody seriously wants him out of the way. Given as “104 rue du Jardin”, the apartment is 104 Avenue Kléber, at rue de Longchamp, just north of Trocadero (Métro: Trocadero).
The ‘Treadstone’ safehouse, in which Nicky (Julia Stiles) receives her instructions, is 2 Place du Marché Sainte-Catherine, above Le Marché restaurant, in the green and usually relaxing 18th century square in the Marais district.
The Bourne Identity filming location: the mansion of Wombosi: 11 Place des États Unis, Paris
The palatial mansion of dictator Wombosi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), in which he's assassinated by The Professor (Clive Owen), is the former townhouse of Marie-Laure de Noailles, now made over by designer Philippe Starck as HQ of Baccarat (opened in 1764, one of Europe's leading purveyors of full-lead crystal.) at 11, Place des États Unis (Métro: Boissière). Downstairs is a glittering boutique, upstairs the museum houses show-off pieces made for princes and maharajahs, a painted cabinet by Gérard Garouste, and the distressed-chic Cristal Room, where you can breakfast, lunch or dinner.
The Bourne Identity filming location: Bourne leaves his red bag at the rail station: Gare du Nord, Paris
Bourne leaves his precious red bag in the luggage lockers at the Gare du Nord and, outside, Marie takes the dangerous option of sticking with him.
The Bourne Identity filming location: Bourne leaves his red bag at the rail station: Gare du Nord, Paris
The Gare du Nord, one of the six large termini of the main line SNCF network, is supposedly the busiest station in Europe, serving the north of France, as well as international destinations including the United Kingdom, Belgium and The Netherlands
It’s back to the Czech Republic for the ‘French’ farmhouse, where the couple bring trouble to a family when they're targeted by The Professor, which is in the village of Suchdol, not far from Ruzyne, Prague’s international airport.
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