The Manchurian Candidate Discount

Use this and the original in a film class
I’d held off for a bit on seeing this; the original Manchurian Candidate is an all-time favorite movie, and, well, you know…
At the end of this film I scooted over to my bookshelf and grabbed the DVD case of the original. My guess was the remake was no more than 90 minutes and the original must have been at least two and 1/2 hours in duration. Good Lord! They were both exactly 129 minutes long!
There’s a profound lesson here. The first film, in that wonderful 129 managed to tell a great story, travel a lot, freak me out repeatedly, stun me with novelty (the playing cards, the whole Republican/McCarthy/Lincoln shtick, the “flower show’ interrogation, the “jump in a lake”, getting drunk with Shaw, and on and on) work in a great love story, work in a tragic love story, work in a pathological love story, and develop a host of intriguing characters, and thrill me with what seemed to be an unending sequence of marvelous performances. The equally lengthy remake stirred little sympathies and seldom got off the ground. As storytelling, the film spun its wheels. You’d think if you remake a movie, ignore character development, ignore any relationship development, ignore any complex and intelligent commentary on modern goings-on (it was just terrorism and corporate involvement in war handled in the most superficial way)–ignore a whale of a lot–you could bring the thing in at about 48 minutes, maybe 60 with commercials. If I watch it again (not likely) I’ll have a stop-watch handy and I’ll take notes. It was like some magic trick.
So what happened in that 129 minutes anyway? I’m honestly not sure–Denzel Washington sweats a lot and communicated none of the subtlety and complexity that Sinatra managed, Meryl Streep brought on the heretical thought that maybe she’s overrated and maybe Angela Lansbury was underrated, I missed Janet Leigh who delivered the same lines splendidly, I missed the black humor and irony and ambiguity, and who the heck was that bad Lawrence Harvey impressionist? Motivations were lost, the WHOLE POINT that everyone hated this guy but parroted their adoration for him wasn’t presented clearly, and the motivation for the entire brainwashing venture was muddled up by the script after first stating that it was all about control. What a mess. Every time the film tried to echo the original, it’d already gone so far off track that it just confused matters even worse.
My serious suggestion is that some professor (and not necessarily a film professor) have a class watch both versions, note what went right in 129 minutes in the original, and what went horribly wrong in the 129 minutes of the remake and then have the students try to explain why. My guess is the answers will be fascinating.
It’s a one-star movie but I give it two because it was up against impossible-to-beat competition.
The Manchurian Canddiate (2004)
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Wright, Kimberly Elise, Anthony Mackie, Adam LeFevre, Ann Dowd, Simon McBurney.
Running Time: 129 minutes
Rated R for violence and some language.
“The Manchurian Candidate” is “Silence of the Lambs” director Jonathan Demme’s remake attempt at the 1962 classic. In the new film, the villainous force isn’t Communism, but capitalism, or more specifically, a vaguely defined corporate entity that hopes to rule the world. As such, in giving us a generic corporate villain, the film has all the gravity of a James Bond adventure. The change is revealing in that it shows the political correctness of Hollywood thinking (in not wishing to slur any ethnic group, or for that matter any specific political party), plus it shows the lack of creative thinking in Hollywood (by playing it safe and trite with the usual stereotypical band of rich, white, male Western capitalists as the baddies). Denzel Washington plays Colonel Ben Marco, who we first meet delivering a speech to a Boy Scout troop about his experiences in the first Gulf War, and how Congressman Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, who deserves an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) saved his platoon from an enemy attack. Marco, we soon discover, has been having mysterious dreams that say otherwise. Dreams of torture, medical experimentation, brainwashing, and murder. He is motivated to investigate the dream when he finds out from a former platoon mate (Jeffrey Wright) that he’s not alone in wondering what really happened that night. Meanwhile, Raymond Shaw has just been positioned as his party’s reluctant nominee for Vice-President of the United States thanks to the machinations of his nightmarish mother (Meryl Streep), who is a US senator. Marco visits Shaw and tries to get Shaw’s help in figuring out what happened, but Shaw is reluctant to get involved. he suspects Marco is insane. Little does he know, his mind is being controlled by the very same people Marco’s been dreaming about.
Arguably, the actors in this remake are better than the actors in the original, or at least Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber give more nuanced and complex performances. Yet, better isn’t necessarily better. Frank Sinatra’s Capt. Marco was a troubled man, who still was in control, he grounded the film; Washington’s Marco is progressively more unstable and somehow less satisfying as a-man-no-one-will-believe cliché. Schreiber, who even looks a little like a baby-faced Laurence Harvey, plays Raymond with a gentle vulnerability, which would make him appealing as the would-be candidate, but it was Harvey’s unrelenting nastiness that made it so ironic in the original that he ultimately became both heroic and sympathetic. This film begs you to like Raymond Shaw; the previous one dared you to. Even Kimberly Elise, whose Rosie is now an intricate part of the story, lacks that cool charm and dry humor of Janet Leigh’s mysterious and ultimately irrelevant character in the first film. The characters have been rewritten, but not reenergized. Streep, with the thankless job of trying to fill the iconic shoes of Angela Lansbury, gives her character a controlled ruthlessness that is perfectly believable; but lacking that mix of cold-blooded ruthlessness and cheerfully vicious opportunism that made Lansbury’s performance a classic. Streep gives a fine performance; Lansbury gave a unique performance. Plus, by making Streep an actual Senatorm logical, given the times, her power is made obvious and the character is the weaker for it. Lansbury, on the other hand, was playing Lady Macbeth, a power behind the throne whose dominance was all the more frightening because it was unexpected, inexplicable, yet unquestioned.
To their credit, the filmmakers have tried to follow the blueprint of the original film, while still adding twists and clever surprises to make the story different, if not fresh. Unfortunately, many, if not all, of the changes don’t work or don’t improve anything. Despite a reasonable effective start the film begins a downward arc, right up to a twist-upon-a-twist ending that makes the unlikely plot seem simply stupid. It says something when you end a film with a political assassination and still can’t generate suspense. And it doesn’t help that the convention and rally sequences all look totally fake. Some films are simply products of their times; they don’t translate to different eras. Frankenheimer’s “The Manchurian Candidate” is one; it plays as fresh and exciting today as it did them, but it is nonetheless an artifact of the Cold War era. It tells us something about America, circa 1950-1965. All Demme’s “Candidate” tells us about 21st century America is that Hollywood has gotten lazy. Not a bad film by any strech of the imagination, but not up to the original version.
Great performances, a topical movie for uncertain times
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never seen the first Manchurian Candidate made in 1962, or even heard of the novel by Richard Condon, so I viewed this remake without any preconceived notions. The first thing that struck me about this movie is how relevant and topical the subject matter is, especially in times of multicolored terror alerts. The themes of media manipulation, the corruption of power, and the perversion of democracy are all woven into a tightly knit thriller that steadily pulls the viewer in. The Manchurian Candidate is a chilling account of what results when political and technological power converges and is used for the wrong reasons. The idea that private interests can rule government, that research regarding brain science can be used for harm rather than good, and that vast conspiracies can ensure that the public are kept ignorant and uninformed, are all urgently, and incontrovertibly relevant today.
The movie centers on Sergeant Raymond Prentiss Shaw (Liev Schreiber), a Desert Storm veteran and current Congressman who is competing for the U.S. Vice Presidency. Shaw, if elected, will be the first vice-presidential candidate created solely for use by the private sector. A private corporation called Manchurian Global is investing in him and is backed by the prestigious reputation of his family name. Raymond’s ever-present, media-friendly mother, Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep), is a driven, egoistic and self-absorbed politician with a corrupt nature that will do anything to have her son elected to the White House. But Raymond’s actions are perhaps driven not by his own motivations to be a good public servant, but from the brainwashing he underwent while serving in Kuwait.
Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) is the paranoid leader of Sergeant Shaw’s unit in Desert Storm. Marco has never really mentally recovered from his traumatizing experiences overseas. Plagued by devastating nightmares, he embarks in a quest to discover whether there’s any truth behind these unsettling dreams. As the pieces of the puzzle come together, Marco discovers that the nightmares are from the effects of brainwashing, rather than from Gulf War Syndrome as was previously thought. Everyone surrounding Shaw does not want to discuss what happened in Desert Storm and even Shaw admits that he doesn’t remember performing the heroic acts that handed him a Medal of Honor. As the mystery expertly unfolds, Marco comes to suspect that he and his men were brainwashed in order to place a sleeper into the White House that could one day, potentially, bring about the end of American democracy, as we know it.
The Manchurian Candidate is an actor’s movie, and it’s refreshing to see three of the finest actors working today delve into their roles with passion and veracity. Streep gives probably the most disturbing and creepy performance. She brings a possibly incestuous, morally evil, surely demented mother, to electrifying life. Live Schreiber gives a well-modulated, unemotional and often scary performance that makes one question his true loyalties. Denzel brings a depth of character and a range of emotion that one has come to expect from the actor, and Kimberly Elise is excellent and suitably spunky as Rosie in a crucial role. Viewers will be treated to a great story and a very well acted movie when they see the Manchurian Candidate. This is probably one of the best movies of the year so far, and is definitely one of the most affecting, disturbing, and powerful political thrillers of the past few years. Mike Leonard August 04.

Basement Songs: “The Manchurian Candidate

The Korean War. An Army unit is ambushed while on patrol in the countryside, their interpreter has double crossed them. The soldiers get strapped down to gurneys and  hoisted on to helicopters, flown away into the night skies with their fates uncertain. So begins The Manchurian Candidate, the 1962 film written by George Axelrod (adapted from the book by Richard Condon), directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury.

After that brief prologue, we soon learn what happened to those soldiers. Somehow, they escaped and were brought to safety by Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Harvey). Awarded the Medal of Honor, Shaw returns home a hero, with his politically minded mother (Lansbury) using his fame as a way to propel her second husband, a U.S. Senator, into the national spotlight. Raymond wants nothing to do with his mother or his step-father. He hates them both, HATES them. Raymond is given the opportunity of lifetime to work for a New York newspaper and tries to put the war and his family behind him.

Yet, there’s something very off with the story everyone’s being fed. What about those helicopters? Where did those soldiers get taken away to and just how is it possible that Raymond, a man who lacked the respect of his platoon and who seemed to barely know how to hold himself as a soldier, could actually become a hero? The intrigue builds. While Raymond’s life is going so grandly, we cut away to Major Bennett Marco, Shaw’s commanding officer. After returning from Korea, Marco is a wreck. He’s been having a recurring nightmare that involves his patrol watching Raymond kill two of his fellow soldiers while they sit by, idling their time away. When he’s placed on indefinite sick leave by the Army, Marco decides to find out what really happened in Korea. He sets off to find Raymond Shaw.

We soon learn is that Marco, Raymond and the rest of their platoon were shipped to Manchuria, China and brainwashed by Communists. The reason? They want to turn Raymond Shaw into the ultimate assassin. The communists have complete control over his mind and with a few simple words (“why don’t you pass the time by playing a little solitary”) and one visual cue (the queen of diamonds), Raymond is their puppet. Who he’s supposed to kill and how the communists came to choose Raymond I won’t reveal here because I want you all to rent this movie the next chance you have.

I first heard of The Manchurian Candidate in the late 80’s, when the film was being re-released after years of being out of circulation. At the time, there was speculation that Sinatra had had something to do with the film being held from public view, something to do with his close association with John F. Kennedy and the assassination plot in the film hitting to close to reality. To be honest, I didn’t care. I was just another film snob who thought Sinatra was a bad actor and that his films wouldn’t be worth seeing, no matter how much critics lavished praise on them.

Boy was I a fool.

In the mid 90’s, I happened to be sitting home on a weekday afternoon, flipping through the channels while waiting for inspiration to hit (we’ve all been there) and I turned on Turner Classic Movies just as The Manchurian Candidate had begun. Not realizing what I was watching I got sucked in by the tense first five minutes. I couldn’t stop watching. At this point in my life, my highfalutin ideal about what constitutes as art had mellowed considerably since my senior year of high school. Marriage will do that to you, as will surrounding yourself with a group of friends who work in special effects and their favorite movies of all time include the names Baker, Bottin and Harryhausen, not Ford, Kubrick or Scorsese. Thus, seeing Frank Sinatra’s name above the titles didn’t make me turn the channel. As the ads exclaim, the first five minutes of the film are vital to the understanding of the plot of The Manchurian Candidate. However, the film is so much more than just those five minutes.

Visually, Frankenheimer employed wonderful cinematography tricks to create a sense of paranoia and bewilderment. You need look no farther than Marco’s nightmare sequence. Frankenheimer wanted a single take in which the soldiers were seen sitting on stage at a New Jersey womens garden party and after the camera moves 360 degrees, they’re suddenly sitting in a Chinese amphitheater, being presented to a group of communists generals and their underlings. To achieve this effect, he had two sets build on railroad tracks. As the camera begins its circular pan around the room, showing ladies sitting in the audience, listening attentively about hydrangeas, the garden party stage set was pushed away by the film crew and the Chinese amphitheater stage was set in place. The actors jumped from one to the other and the 360 pan achieved a flawless transition between the brainwash garden party dream of the soldiers and the reality of being in the Chinese amphitheater. For any film enthusiast or budding filmmaker, the effect is mind-blowing.

Throughout the movie, Frankenheimer switched from hand held cameras, creating a documentary look, to locked-down cameras using extremely long lenses. Being shot in black and white gives the movie the feel of a classic, old movie, yet the modern techniques make it unique. The director also brought out the best in his actors. Sinatra is noble and heroic, but allows himself to look ugly and buffoonish when necessary. Angela Lansbury is downright evil as Raymond’s mother. Anyone whose only connection to the actress is her kind-hearted Murder She Wrote role will be shocked. The best performance comes from Harvey, who must make his unlikable character sympathetic. Raymond clearly knows that he’s unlovable, that he’s a stuck up jerk. Yet his heinous actions are not a result of just his upbringing. Raymond is a Cold War victim and in the end, he’s a tragic figure.

The lasting effect of The Manchurian Candidate in film history can be read about on critics’ lists and in books. For me, the lasting effect of this film is how much it inspires me each time I watch it. I want to pick up a camera and go experiment, to somehow create moving images like Frankenheimer did nearly 50 years ago. As a filmmaker, you can’t ask for much more in a movie, except to be entertained. The Manchurian Candidate does that to.