The Manchurian Candidate: A candidate for our time

[Keirsey]

From Canada's Globe and Mail

Though not the masterpiece the original was, it is sharply executed and has enough election-year resonances and contemporary references to corporate malfeasance, terrorist threats and American military incursions around the globe to have some political charge as well.

Though it adheres to the structure of George Axelrod's original script, the new Candidate does not have the mothball smell of remake about it. If Demme's film is a throwback, it's not to the shadowy film style of the early 1960s, but to the muddle and paranoia of mid-seventies America, of corrupt big government and military-industrial manipulations in such films as The Parallax View and Winter Kills. Where the original Candidate was suave, strange and dream-like, the current one is sprawling and sweaty; with hot colours and loud sounds, it's the rock 'n' roll version of the first film's dissonant jazz.

Packed with strong performances and a literate script, it is rich in resonances torn from the headlines. The new paranoia comes from terrorists and big government. A presidential coup? (Didn't that already happen in Florida?) A cue-card-reading robotic president placed in power by corporate interests? Just imagine.

With no more Cold War to blame, Demme and his screenwriters have deftly updated the story, placing it not in the present, but the near future. In 2008, Gulf War veteran Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) is a pill-popping mess, suffering from recurrent nightmares about a former army friend, Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), who is now a congressman for an unnamed party, a rising political figure with hawkish views. The radio and television informs us of a series of U.S. interventions in countries from Indonesia to Guinea, pre-emptive strikes against governments that threaten American supremacy.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040730/CANDID30/TPEntertainment/TopStories

[Connie_Corleone]

1. Well hell!

I finally saw the original version last weekend. I'm looking forward to seeing the updated version.

I hope people watching this see the parallels.

[Keirsey]

2. A good 'Candidate'

A snarky observer might point out that the evil plot at the center of "The Manchurian Candidate" has already taken place -- without all the complicated conspiracies or mind-control experiments.

In the real world, that snarky observer might point out, it only takes a few hundred million and some well-placed friends to get a "privately owned and operated presidency," as one character observes about the conspiracy at the center of the new thriller, a remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 film of the same name.

The 2004 version is directed by Jonathan Demme ("The Silence of the Lambs"), who updates the Cold War paranoia with the 21st century version of the Communist menace: greedy multi-national corporations that will do anything for the bottom line.

On a purely sociological level, it's fascinating to see the way this new "Candidate" uses the modern unease of corporate domination to get chills. Notice Demme's extensive use of shots of television news programs that look suspiciously like the Fox News Channel, with its splashy graphics and news crawl on the bottom of the screen.

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/news/stories/20040730/localnews/946699.html

[peekaloo]

3. Hatie-Katie Couric laughed/smirked in Demme's face yesterday

on the 'Today' show regarding these parallels. "Evil corporations running the world, come on." Demme held his ground.

I'm relieved it's not an actual remake but an update on the original theme.