The Manchurian Candidate
By William Sternman
-------------------------------------
The
Manchurian Candidate
Starring Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Like
so many movies of the Fifties and early Sixties, the original Manchurian
Candidate (1962) was emotionally desiccated. There was just enough
characterization to make you want to see what happened next but not enough
to make you relate to the characters themselves as real, three-dimensional
human beings. Angela Lansbury’s bravura performance does turn what
is basically a fairy-tale wicked witch into an archetypal figure of evil,
but even she can’t bring her to full life; James Gregory’s
Senator is such a caricature that even those familiar with Senator Joseph
R. McCarthy must cringe at the broadness of his portrayal. (And, yes,
Virginia, there actually was a Joe McCarthy. I couldn’t possibly
make that up.)
If you haven’t already seen the John Frankenheimer original, see Jonathan Demme’s version first. Not because the 1962 movie is so much better that you’ll be disappointed by the remake, but because otherwise, like me, you may find yourself missing favorite scenes from the older film (like the famous ladies’ garden party) that didn’t make it to the new final cut. And you’ll also see the “surprise” ending coming.
Since it had no excess baggage, like superfluous human emotions, George Axelrod’s original script (based on Richard Condon’s novel) whizzed along with the single-mindedness of a speeding bullet (Was that a cliché that just whistled by my ear?). You just didn’t have time to question its implausibilities or the plot loopholes you could have driven a speeding bullet train through.
The updated version, by Daniel Pyne and Dean Georgaris, is richer in human (if not family) values, not to mention the Las Vegas flash and excitement of a modern political campaign (It made me think of the superficially glitzy Tokyo depicted in Lost in Translation).
The conflict is now the Gulf War (instead of the Korean). Two soldiers (Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright) are saved by a third (Liev Schreiber). Schreiber parlays the resulting Medal of Honor into a bid for the vice presidency of the United States (Sounds eerily familiar, doesn’t it?). But Washington and Wright are haunted by nightmares that suggest something else might have happened. They remember one thing yet dream about something completely different. What really happened? Washington tries to force Schreiber to tell the truth, but the latter is both clueless and uncommunicative. Yet it’s obvious that he holds the key to a conspiracy, whether he knows it or not (I know, of course, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy by a certain multinational firm whose initials are MGC).
The actors in the newer movie make all the difference. In 1962, Raymond Shaw was the zombie-like Laurence Harvey; in 2004, Liev Schreiber displays more warmth, personality and self-awareness. He may not be cuddly, but he’s no longer fishy either.
His mother has been transformed from a witch into a bitch: a ruthless Senator determined to have her way no matter who gets hurt. No one could have made her more believable than Meryl Streep. I only wish she had been on screen more.
Taking over the Frank Sinatra role is Denzel Washington. Denzel is Denzel: he can make any character credible and sympathetic, even the warped cop in Training Day.
And therein lie the overriding flaws in Demme’s remake. The very humanity and believability of his characters and the reality of his mise-en-scène make the convoluted science-fiction plot even harder to swallow than the pulp-fiction original. Korean War-style brainwashing is still more believable than subdermal and trans-cranial microchip implants.
Another credibility-curdling touch: in order to explain (and retain) the title, the nominal villain in the piece becomes a multinational conglomerate called Manchurian Global Corporation (With offices, no doubt, in all major cities—New York, London, Paris, Mukden).
Paradoxically, the remake is too much like its predecessor for its plot twists to make you gasp and not enough like it to be a true remake. I’d have enjoyed it more if it had been one or the other.
But don’t get me wrong: Demme’s movie is still a breathless roller-coaster ride very much worth taking.
-------------------------------------
William Sternman's short stories have been published in England, Hungary, Pakistan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, as well as the U.S. His book and movie reviews have appeared in Audience, Films in Review, Bestsellers, The Drummer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Houston Chronicle, The Boston Herald, The St. Petersburg Times and www.movie-vault.com. He has been a volunteer tutor at the Center for Literacy since 1998. He received a fellowship grant in literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
© 2004 Me Three