Sky K Studios Movie Blog

The Manchurian Candidate

I keep going back and forth on whether the remake of The Manchurian Candidate is successful or not. This may be wildly misplaced, but I think there’s some real tension between what a Hollywood movie can achieve — with its need to make us empathize with individuals, and see the world at the level of individual agents — and what a movie like this sets out to do, namely provide a structural analysis of conspiracy (rather than a conspiracy of individual agents). Maybe, as has been pointed out to me, this is the essence of a noir film and I simply don’t have the fluency in the genre. But I felt a real disconnect here.

But the more pervasive (to the casual viewer) disconnect in this film could have been easily avoided. Throughout the film are countless signifiers that this action is happening in our world, our America: we are treated to shots of cable news coverage, advertising, and coverage of a political convention. Right down to the last detail, these establishing shots and other devices used to carry the plot along have been crafted very carefully, and are terrifically clever as well as funny. Rather than bring us into this world, though, these devices only serve to remind us that the world of Washington and Schreiber is not our world.

Plot is carried along and tone is set through the constant use of cable news coverage. There’s no shame in making up a cable channel to appear to be CNN, but Demme went to the point of absurdity in laying out the channel. Since 9/11, yes, the scroll has become ubiquitous, but on Demme’s news channel, the scroll literally contains the same information as the main image and sound on the screen. “I want a stronger America,” Raymond Shaw will say, while the scroll underneath reads: “Shaw: ‘I want a stronger America.’” Okay, so the scroll in our (real) world is absurd, we get it, no argument. But this seems like a silly place to point that out. In general, the fact of the cable news throughout the movie is an excellent device; its execution, however, only distances us from the action.

Likewise with some of the news reported. Recent terrorist attacks have centered on Denver? This is just silly. For a movie that’s shooting for topicality as much as this one is — and few shoot for such topicality, with Halliburton (“Manchurian Global,” recipient of scandal-ridden overseas no-bid contracts from the army) playing the villain in an election year that sees the Democrats trying to take back the White House from an incumbent Republican — why try to be too clever? Demme should have stuck with the obvious: fears of terrorist attacks on the coasts. Hearing about such attacks in Denver only distracts.

And what up with Jessica Lynch onstage at the Democratic convention? It’s only a quick shot, but it’s clearly intended to be her. More gratuitousness.

One thing the movie did right, however, is something that most movies do glaringly wrong: the use of technology. In one scene in the New York Public Library, Ben Marco (Washington) uses Google like a normal person would. This simple device would get Demme more points but for the fact that here it’s only making up for the previous scene where Marco is researching Manchurian: when will Hollywood get over the retarded “microfiche as shorthand for research” image? Someone get Demme a Lexis-Nexis account.

These are all nitpicky things, yes, but they add up. When you’re shooting for verisimilitude, don’t employ devices that will most serve to highlight differences between our world and the film world. A simple lesson that most directors — too clever by half — won’t learn.

posted by Jon Z at 4:23 PM