The Manchurian Candidate, Johnathan Demme directed the remake. Both films portray paranoia, mind control, and conspiracy. Frankenheimer utilizes satire, humor, and symbolism to convey the themes, whereas, Demme uses modern fears, camera angles and focus, and mental illness to achieve similar results.
Many of the elements of the 2004 remake have been modernized. While the original movie placed the soldiers in Korea, the remake placed them in Kuwait. Demme did changed the location of the war, in order to appeal to current fears and suspicions. In 1962, the threat of communism was at the forefront of everyone’s thoughts. However, during 2004, only three years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, citizens were no longer concerned about communists, but rather about the Middle East. If Demme did not change the setting to Kuwait, the movie would not instill the same fear as it did in the original movie, “by outfitting the superbly insinuating basic story with a battery of up-to-the-minute concerns that readily feed on present fears and suspicions, Demme... inject[s] new life into a recently dormant genre - the paranoid thriller” (McCarthy). Raymond Shaw’s mother, Eleanor, was also given a more modern job in the remake; instead of merely being the wife of the senator who leads behind the scenes, in the remake she is the one who is the senator. Her role depicts the emerging role of women in modern politics. Demme also chose to give Major Marco’s girlfriend, Rosie, a more modern and important job as an FBI agent. By modernizing the film, Demme allows the contemporary audience to be able to better relate and understand the film.
Dark humor and satire were present in the original film, in order to provide a break from the intensity and paranoi...
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The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. John Frankenheimer. Prod. John Frankenheimer and George Axelrod. By George Axelrod. Perf. Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury. United Artists, 1962.
The Manchurian Candidate. Dir. Johnathan Demme. By Richard Condon. Screenplay by George Axelrod, Daniel Pyne, and Dean Georgaris. Perf. Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep, Kimberly Elise. Paramount, 2004.
Achenbach, Joel. "They're Out To Get You, Into a Multiplex." Rev. of The Manchurian Candidate (2004). The Washington Post 26 July 2004: n. pag. Print.
McCarthy, Todd. "Review: 'The Manchurian Candidate'" Rev. of The Manchurian Candidate (1962). Variety 17 July 2004: n. pag. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
Sterritt, David. "A 'Candidate' worth Backing." Rev. of The Manchurian Candidate. The Christian Science Monitor 30 July 2004: n. pag. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
For some people a sad story, yet for others a message to the people that see the movie. The Manchurian Candidate (1962) is a movie made after the time of the Cold War (1945-1952) . Indeed, there are reasons to believe that this movie is anti-communist by the fact that it presents traits of some Cold War features such as espionage and maybe proof of McCarthyism.
Stark contrasts exist between the description of the characters and emotional content between the book and the movie. This may be mainly due to the limited length of the movie. In the movie, Rat Kiley who is telling the story seems gentler. In the book they make it seem like everything Rat says is exaggerated, but the movie does not stress that fact. “Among the men in Alpha Company, Rat had a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement, a compulsion to rev up the facts, and for most of us it was normal procedure to discount sixty or seventy percent of anything he had to say” (O’Brien 89). Also, the movie emphasizes the fact that Rat Kiley fell in love with Mary Anne Bell. He himself says he loved her towards the end of the movie. A character that people may tend to have sympathy for is Mark Fossie. In the book, one may not feel for Fossie. The movie shows the character having more feeling especially after he couldn’t find Mary Anne. A third character that is portrayed differently in the movie than in the book is Mary Anne, who is the main female character of the chapter. The movie stressed the fact that Mary Anne wanted to learn more about the Vietnamese way of life. There was a scene in the movie where Mary Anne spent time with the Vietnamese soldiers learning their language and how to cook their food. They also show her going ...
The Crucible. Dir. Nicholas Hytner. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Paul Scofield. 20th Century Fox, 1996. DVD.
Brubaker. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg. Perf. Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto, Jane Alexander ,Murray Hamilton, David Keith, Morgan Freeman. Twentieth Century Fox, 1980. Film.
... out of a 1950s woman's film. The melodramatic influences of the film continue to manifest themselves in the newer release, just as Apocalypse Now continues to influence the epic movies of contemporary filmmakers. The unison of operatic spectacle and personal conflict spawned an original genre in the 1970s that remains an effective method of addressing social concerns. As we enter another period of political unrest and social change, it is likely that a new wave of melodramatic films is beginning to form on the horizon; there are certainly parallels between a government that declares war on terrorism and the U.S. army in Vietnam, who "knew everything about military tactics, but nothing about where they were or who the enemy was" (Cowie 143). From Conrad to Coppola, nuclear family to nuclear terrorism; never get off the boat, unless you're willing to go all the way.
(1350)A Comparison and Contrast Analysis of the Depiction of the ”War on Terror” in Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and The Siege (1998)
LA Confidential. Dir. Curtis Hanson. Perf. Kevin Spacey, Russel Crowe, Guy Pierce, Kim Bassinger, Danny DeVito. Regency, 1997.
Rebel Without a Cause. Dir. Nicholas Ray. Perf. James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Jim
“There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line” (“Oscar Levant Quotes”).
Dir. Julie Taymor. Perf. Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999.
Edgar Hoover eludes to these same themes in his 26 March 1947 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee. “The Communists have developed one of the greatest propaganda machines the world has ever known. The… propaganda technique is designed to promote emotional response with the hope that the victim will be attracted by what he is told the Communist way of life holds in store for him.” Linking these channels of propaganda are the themes of psychological, physical, technological and social dangers of political establishments more similar to Communism than
Talbot, David. "The Assassination: Was It a Conspiracy?: Yes." Time. 169 (7/2/2007): n. page. Print.
The film tells the story of a deranged United States Air Force general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper who was the commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, launches a planed nuclear attack on the Soviet Union via his nuclear-armed B-52 fighter jets, which were holding at their fail-safe points, to move into Soviet airspace, based upon a twisted paranoia that the communist party was contaminating “our precious bodily fluids”. The movie follows the course of events proceeding General Jack D. Ripper’s ordered attack.
William Wyler is the director of the 1959 award-winning version of Ben-Hur. The film is an adaptation of General Lew Wallace’s novel. Karl Tunberg is credited with the actual screenplay. Sam Zimbalist was the original producer of Ben-Hur, but he died before the completion of filming. The two main characters are Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd). Another important person involved in this film is Miklos Rozsa. He composed the award-winning musical score in a total of eight weeks.
Dir. Steven Spielberg. By Brian Aldiss. Perf. Haley, Joel Osment and Jude Law.