The Manchurian Candidate
The Manchurian Candidate is a political thriller by Richard Condon, the 1959 film was directed by John Frankenheimer, there has also been a remake of the film (2004) directed by Jonathan Demme.
The film centres around a son of a right winged political family in the USA(Sergeant Raymond Shaw) who has been brainwashed by a communist party, to be used as their assassin, while being kidnapped with his platoon in the Korean war of 1952. Both fils pose the question 'What if?', the films were based on the novel by Condon, the films and the novel all come with the same question of how society is ruled and how we should consider our political figures more closely, despite this, both films allow for some differences.
The 1959 film is said to be effective and simple (saving money on costs), this is shown in the press scene, where everybody is in the same room, the older version is said to be filled with some racism, with the token black soldier and the antagonists and unknown characters being played by Eastern Asian men. In comparison to the modern remake, the filming was more expensive, i.e graphics, and slight horrific scenes of brain surgery, also racism is shunned almost with being that the main character is black and the society is multi-cultural.
The film tries to portray Communism as being something ugly, and bad. This can be seen when the mother of the son tries to have sex with the son, (the whole family is trying to welcome communism to the states) this is a very much forsaken taboo subject, which subconsciously makes us link this taboo subject and communism together, making communism look bad.
The opening scene of the recent film allows us to see night vision-making the film look more realistic and believable, the set looks more realistic as to if it actually looks like a real war ground, and also there are explosions used on set to capture the action and realism of the film. The usage of non-diegetic sound sounds like blood pumping around in the flashback, making us feel part of the movie and engulfs us into that particular scene.
The film tries to portray Communism as being something ugly, and bad. This can be seen when the mother of the son tries to have sex with the son, (the whole family is trying to welcome communism to the states) this is a very much forsaken taboo subject, which subconsciously makes us link this taboo subject and communism together, making communism look bad.
The opening scene of the recent film allows us to see night vision-making the film look more realistic and believable, the set looks more realistic as to if it actually looks like a real war ground, and also there are explosions used on set to capture the action and realism of the film. The usage of non-diegetic sound sounds like blood pumping around in the flashback, making us feel part of the movie and engulfs us into that particular scene.
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