But it lacks the science-fiction angle of brainwashing-instead, the conspiracy involves a military coup being planned by a charismatic general (Burt Lancaster) against a president (Fredric March) attempting to negotiate peace and nuclear disarmament with the Soviets. Seven Days In May (1964, directed by John Frankenheimer)įrankenheimer’s immediate follow-up to The Manchurian Candidate has the same deep distrust in the highest levels of government. The core message-that Americans are easily misled by the spectacle of military heroism-remained as trenchant more than 40 years on. Demme’s fascinating 2004 update, which starred Denzel Washington as the man unraveling the scandal, pivoted from Soviets to big business, with a multinational corporation this time engineering Shaw’s rise to power. The boldness of the story is its clear disdain for the stars-and-stripes pageantry of American politics, easily manipulated to serve the interests of Shaw’s mother, Eleanor (Angela Lansbury), who craves only raw power. John Frankenheimer’s 1962 film is a masterpiece of Cold War paranoia, where the square-jawed military hero Raymond Shaw (played by Laurence Harvey) is brainwashed to become a Soviet sleeper agent. The Manchurian Candidate, 2004 (Paramount Pictures) The Manchurian Candidate (1962, directed by John Frankenheimer) / (2004, directed by Jonathan Demme) What follows are some of the best cinematic efforts that capture that wary mood over the years, arranged chronologically to chart how filmmakers’ brashness waxed and waned over the decades. Their deep suspicion of the apparatus of power stemmed from real scandals engulfing the U.S., or from rumors of government involvement in assassinations and overseas wars that could never be fully dismissed.
But even the most outlandish of these works have a grain of truth to them. Some of the best paranoid thrillers and conspiratorial dramas of the past 50 years were initially dismissed as fantastical genre pieces by critics, seen as little more than popcorn entertainment. Hollywood, especially beginning in the ’60s, has depicted United States leadership and its intelligence apparatus as shadowy and villainous with greater daring over the decades. That distrust has long been reflected in cinema. Polling shows public trust in government has collapsed to historic lows, a decline that began in the 1960s with the agitation around the civil-rights movement and the Vietnam War. There’s undeniable surrealism to the moment at hand, with police killings captured on camera running parallel to the bizarre image of the president strolling to a church to hold up a Bible, after the police used violent force to clear his path of peaceful protesters.
America continues to battle the coronavirus, demonstrators fill the streets to decry police brutality and racism, and former members of President Donald Trump’s own Cabinet are denouncing his leadership.