Jonathan Demme directed an up-to-date version of The Manchurian Candidate in 2004, starring Denzel Washington as Major Marco, Liev Schreiber as Congressman Raymond Shaw, and Meryl Streep as Senator Eleanor Shaw (her husband is not included). This contemporary adaptation made substantial changes to the source material by dropping the Cold War background for an anti-corporation story of private and business control of the U.S. government. The American soldiers are also shown being captured in Kuwait during the Gulf War between Iraqi and UN forces.
Raymond is the brainwashed Manchurian candidate and Marco the brainwashed assassin. The novel explicitly depicts incest between Raymond and his mother. The social conventions of American cinema in 1962 limited Frankenheimer's depiction to a salacious adult kiss between mother and son. Demme's depiction of mother-son incest is more explicit.
Demme's rewritten and reworked version of The Manchurian Candidate was less critically successful than the original.
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Which do you prefer? Washington or Sinatra? Landsberry or Streep?
@TCManiacs it's not even close. The original is far better
@TCManiacs Sorry Denzel but i have to go with ol Blue eyes Sinartra!
@TCManiacs I like the 1962 one MUCH better
@TCManiacs Blogs: The Manchurian Candidate 1962 vs 2004 http://ow.ly/1Bfz Which do you prefer? Washington or Sinatra? Landsberry or Streep?
@TCManiacs original manchurian is awesome. Lansbury kills it.
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I definitly prefer the original. The remake does not even hold a candle to the original. And as much as I love Denzel and Meryl as actors, Sinatra and Landsberry are far better. Definitly a different side to Angela than we are used to seeing in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Murder She Wrote. She plays a very chilling character.
ReplyDeleteThe original is far better in my opinion. Better written, better directed, better cast. Denzel and Meryl would have been good had they been in the original themselves, but I thought Schreiber was forgettable compared to Laurence Harvey.
ReplyDeleteThe Richard Condon novel was closely adapted for the original version, and is worth reading on its own for additional details, especially about the mother character, who is even more fiendish than they could show in the original movie.