[lbo-talk] The Manchurian Candidate/The Village

[Jon Johanning]

On Aug 1, 2004, at 8:55 AM, John Lacny wrote:

> Thanks for the heads-up about people not being able to fully 
> appreciate the
> remake of the Manchurian Candidate if they haven't seen the original. 
> The
> significant other wants to see it, but hasn't seen the Frank Sinatra
> version, so I am resistant, and this steels my resolve.

The local PBS station showed the original last night. I thought it was 
quite well done, despite a few of what couldn't quite be called "plot 
holes" -- "plot black holes" might be more like it. Especially how the 
evil mother was connected to the evil Red Chinese/Soviets/Koreans, and 
whether we are supposed to take this brainwashing stuff seriously or 
not. Looked to me as though, at that time (made early in the Kennedy 
Administration?), a somewhat leftish world view was beginning to 
revive, but couldn't make up its mind about whether the Soviet Empire 
(especially its Asian branch) was really evil or not. So the makers of 
the film came up with this rather outlandish stitching together of the 
Reds and the McCarthyites in the U.S. Perhaps the idea was to dramatize 
the liberal platitude that the extreme right and extreme left were 
twins.

Planning to see the remake in the next few days. Definitely planning to 
give "The Village" a miss.


Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org
__________________________________
A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was 
equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is 
the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to 
John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt