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- #THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW MOVIE#
- #THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW UPDATE#
- #THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW FREE#
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Keeping with his obsessions, Demme answers by making America a prime supporting character, juxtaposing its complexities against Marco and Shaw’s individual tragedies and their movie-long philosophical discourse. The scene’s personalization of both killer and victims (a consistent Demme trope) only deepens the film’s sense of tragedy and, breathless from this portrayal of man’s mechanistic cruelty, we may be prompted to ask what lies beyond the pitiless mortal coil. Water imagery recurs throughout the film, suggesting the fluidity of memory and acting as cosmic balance to the tempestuous goings-on (the film’s ultimate goal is to see the sea.) What Raymond sees in this sequence is a torturous reflection: a modern-day Narcissus recognizes himself as a morally devoid shell of a man, his devastating mirror image shot back like a bullet through a lover’s dead gaze.
#THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW FREE#
Dressed to the nines in suit and tie, Raymond partially submerges his body as he approaches the first victim, a forced, half-hearted baptism that eradicates free will from the spiritual equation. Witness the film’s brilliant murder sequence where Raymond unwittingly drowns two characters beloved to him.
#THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW UPDATE#
Identity is the solitaire-like trigger of Demme’s Manchurian Candidate, a frightening update to Frankenheimer’s war-as-game scenario-except now the battle is for our very souls. The steady hum of information, often emanating from crystal-clear, too-lifelike television images, effectively confuses the reality of every situation and action, inducing the mindful among us into a deceptive, yet comforting, white-noise trance (somewhere, Marshall McLuhan cackles.) A trance of sorts is what preys on Raymond Prentiss Shaw, a literal prisoner to his own name which, when spoken in a clear, specific order-last name, first name + last name, first name + middle name + last name-makes him an oblivious slave to corporate wills (here the shadowy conglomerate Manchurian Global.) This diabolic control switch provides a kind of masochistic amusement to Raymond’s mother, Senator Eleanor Prentiss Shaw (Meryl Streep), who uses it to further her own sinister, semi-incestuous agenda, a plot that, at one point, Raymond unconsciously acknowledges in pun: “I’m a Prentiss. Sound is the key interloper in this Manchurian Candidate. The film’s opening flashback, which culminates in an ambush on Marco and Shaw’s platoon, abruptly flashes-forward on an aural disturbance: a question to Marco from a Boy Scout. The past is constantly being interrupted in The Manchurian Candidate, intruded on by a more pressing and paranoia-stricken present. Questioning our war-torn past (a history the director constantly represents “like a movie”) Demme boldly suggests that we all have sanguine hands, a crimson-colored culpability that we must come to terms with at the risk of our own sanity. Moving outwards, Demme places the squadron within a blood-red digital rendering of the Kuwaiti oil fields, 1991. The squadron’s card game is an obvious referent to the John Frankenheimer Manchurian Candidate, except here it is what it is-merely a game, not a means to manipulation (and note that the game played is not the original film’s isolationist solitaire). This is a visual template for what follows.ĭemme often begins a scene in tight, identifying individual faces and personalities in one of his trademark direct-eyeline close-ups before moving outward and sketching in the space they inhabit. military squadron (led by Marco and Shaw) laughs and plays cards.
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The actors’ names wave like defiant American flags in the breeze and Demme disorients us by fading into a cramped interior space where a U.S.
#THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE REVIEW MOVIE#
The thematic heart of Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate is revealed through opposing lines of dialogue spoken repeatedly by former Army platoon members Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) and Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber): respectively, “I have dreams”/“I don’t have dreams.” Consider the movie surrounding this verbal rhyme as a dream in itself, color-coated (and coded) as a red, white, and blue philosophical inquiry into a country where true progress is blocked by a variety of dichotomous oppositions (Black/White Republican/Democrat Civilian/Politician.) “I ain’t no senator’s son!” sings Wyclef Jean, covering Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” over the film’s opening credits.