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Please. Do you realize how rediculous it is to compare Altman's and Kubrick's films with the Bourne films and the rest of Greengrass's work? Altman is my favorite filmmaker of all time, and Kubrick is a master, but when did either of them helm an action movie or even a film comparable to Bloody Sunday or United 93? Never.
I will grant you that comparing the choreographed action sequences with a Fred Astaire dance sequence is an interesting one. However, where Fred Astaire's dance is graceful, smooth and obviously choreopraphed, the Bourne fights are disjointed and rough in their nature. Thus Greengrass decides to film them as such. Matter and manner. Present the art in such a way that reveals what the art is about.
You even say, "you can't tell who's fighting whom, who's chasing whom and all you can remember are short visual images that don't connect; which is an apt description of the movie itself." I believe that's exactly the point.
I love the constant whining against this so-called "MTV school of filmmaking." It seems its detractors are offended by a style, not by the many incompetent directors practicing the style. Let's remember the shower scene in Psycho. The shots are extremely short and the cuts are numerous yet it is still hailed as a masterpiece of film.
