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the
manchurian candidate (2004) |
director
Jonathan Demme
screenwriters
Daniel Pyne
Dean Georgaris
based on
the novel by
Richard
Condon
and the
1962 screenplay by
George
Axelrod
producers
Scott Rudin
Tina Sinatra
cinematographer
Tak Fujimoto
music
Rachel Portman
Wyclef Jean
editors
Carol Littleton
Craig McKay
cast
Denzel Washington (Ben Marco)
Meryl Streep (Eleanor Shaw)
Liev Schreiber (Raymond Shaw)
Kimberly Elise (Rosie)
Vera Farmiga (Jocelyn Jordan)
Jon Voight (Senator Thomas Jordan)
David Keeley (Anderson)
Jeffrey Wright (Al Melvin)
Robyn Hitchcock (Laurent Tokar)
Ted Levine (Colonel Howard)
Bruno Ganz (Richard Delp)
Dean Stockwell (Mark Whiting)
Miguel Ferrer (Col. Garrett)
Zeljko Ivanek (Vaughn Utly)
Harry Northup (Congressman Flores)
Charles Napier (General Sloan)
Robert Castle (General Wilson)
Tracey Walter (Night Clerk)
mpaa rating: R
running
time: 135m
u.s.
release: 7/30/04
video
availability: TBA
official website
other jonathan
demme films
reviewed on this website:
- the
complex sessions
- philadelphia
- the
silence of the lambs
- stop
making sense
- storefront
hitchcock
- swimming
to cambodia
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Nobody plays solitaire in Jonathan
Demme's new rendition of The Manchurian Candidate, and
I wondered why until I reflected on the meaning of the card game
in the original 1962 film, wherein a brainwashed soldier was
triggered to kill by the sight of the queen of diamonds. In 1962,
red didn't just mean blood; it meant commies, and the red queen
was ... well, let's not spoil anything. Today, communism isn't
a big worry; terrorism is, and, for some of us, the bigger worry
is a government that takes away our rights in the name of fighting
terrorism and does deals with corporations that profit handsomely
from military operations. Thus, in the remake, the puppetmaster
is not Manchuria but Manchurian Global, a Halliburton-like outfit
represented by three shady guys, including a stogie-waving Dean
Stockwell.
How does the new Manchurian
stack up to the old? For some, nothing can replace John Frankenheimer's
original, so far ahead of its time that it was considered a lurid
paranoid fantasy until JFK was shot and the '60s started getting
weird and scary. Under Frankenheimer's rock-solid direction,
Frank Sinatra actually bestirred himself and gave a performance,
and the script included many winking, cynical references to the
way things really worked (such as the way the McCarthy-esque
senator comes up with the magic number of 57 communists). Both
films, I think, need to be viewed within the context of their
times, and Demme's Candidate is, if anything, more relevant
to 2004 than Frankenheimer's was to 1962 (in retrospect it seems
more prescient than relevant).
After a few questionable moves
(including his previous film, the flop remake The Truth About
Charlie), Demme puts on his game face and remembers the instincts
that led him to fortune and glory with The
Silence of the Lambs. His Manchurian Candidate
honors the original in every way -- mainly by being its own reckless
beast, powered by unstable, off-center camerawork (and many,
many huge, staring-right-into-the-back-row close-ups). Demme's
filmmaking has lost none of its jazz, and some of the uglier
moments -- like the flashbacks and dreams, glimpses of medical
mutilation and horror -- rival the creep-out factor in Silence.
His casting remains as quirky as ever, too; it's a kick to see
Demme regulars like Charles Napier, Tracey Walter, and even Robyn
Hitchcock in an $80 million Paramount thriller opening in almost
3,000 theaters.
Denzel Washington takes the
Sinatra role, as war veteran Ben Marco (this time it's Desert
Storm rather than the Korean War), who has been having odd dreams
about a soldier in his unit, Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber, doing
his best to out-icicle Lawrence Harvey). Washington is one of
those actors Alfred Hitchcock would've loved -- he projects decency
and intelligence, so we believe him when he starts talking
crazy, even when no one else does. Marco has doubts about Shaw's
heroic actions in battle, not to mention Shaw's domineering mother
(Meryl Streep, enjoying herself sinfully), who's grooming him
for the vice-presidency. Along the way, Marco encounters such
oddities as skin implants, Jeffrey Wright as a stammering veteran
with walls full of anguished scribblings, and Kimberly Elise
as a supermarket cashier who might be overqualified for the job.
I can only hint and suggest
from here, but suffice it to say that if you've seen the first
Manchurian Candidate, you don't know how the new one ends
(I approve of the change, and it works well with the Oedipal
subtext, which Demme and his writers ratchet up a bit). I don't
think the words "Democrat" or "Republican"
are spoken in the film, but this is still likely the most electrifying
political movie made in this country since Oliver Stone's JFK
(and yes, that includes Fahrenheit
9/11). What effect, if any, will it have on the presidential
election? I don't know, other than maybe making a few impressionable
moviegoers scrutinize Kerry and Edwards, looking for the red
queen behind Edwards. The not-very-subtle parallels to Halliburton
won't make Bush supporters happy, and the implication that politicians
who talk the little-guy talk are really in thrall to the fatcats
probably isn't what the Kerry campaign wants people to muse on,
either. Like the original, this Manchurian Candidate is
an equal-opportunity troublemaker.
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