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“Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”A group of American soldiers in the Korean War are captured and brainwashed into taking part in a conspiracy that goes straight to the top!
Released in 1962 amidst the Cold War and during the Cuban Missile Crisis, director John Frankenheimer’s brainwashing, dream logic, experimental conspiratorial political thriller foresaw an America 60 years ahead of its time. Frankenheimer, and writer Richard Condon’s, biting satire preceded our own political reality; its polarization, permeated foreign interference, politics for personal gain, and the manipulation of truth and reality. Borrowing from Greek myth and Shakespearean storytelling, The Manchurian Candidate broke bounds that have rarely been neared by another American studio film since. It’s distribution and exhibition in the public was barred for over 20 years due to the political climate brought on by the Kennedy Assassination and a dispute with star, Frank Sinatra. It holds a high place in American political film and has made an indelible mark on American culture and its understanding of politics, both domestic and international.
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and won Frankenheimer the Best Director Award at the DGA Awards that year. It features Frank Sinatra in his most complex role and Laurence Harvey as the icy Raymond Shaw. Angela Lansbury steals the show as Mrs. Shaw, a mother so domineering she would send Freud in psychosis. James Gregory and John McIver support as duelling senators on opposing sides of the aisle. There were shots taken at McCarthyism and the political disfunction of the time and many premonitory parallels with our current political climate and international political alignments. The power of propaganda and indoctrination are central, as are the inner functions of creating a high control centralized government. A glimpse into the paranoia of the Cold War ’60’s, The Manchurian Candidate is a dreamlike mirror to our own political world. (ZACH WORTZMAN)
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue,Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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