"The Manchurian Candidate" Returns

[Aries]

Just in time for the election...

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Date: July 30, 2004
Genre: Thriller
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Written by: Dean Georgaris, Daniel Pyne
Company: Paramount Pictures

Starring: Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Liev Schreiber, Kimberly Elise, Vera Farmiga, Jon Voight, David Keeley, Jeffrey Wright, Sakina Jaffrey, Simon McBurney, Paul Lazar, Alyson Renaldo, Adam LeFevre, Robyn Hitchcock, Pablo Schreiber

A career soldier, Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) grows suspicious about his experience in Desert Storm after Squad Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber), son of the powerful Senator Eleanor Shaw (Meryl Streep), becomes a candidate for Vice President.


Wonder if it will be as good as the original?

http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1988/03/283...

THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
Date of publication: 03/11/1988

By Roger Ebert

Here is a movie that was made more than 25 years ago, and it feels as if it were made yesterday. Not a moment of "The Manchurian Candidate" lacks edge and tension and a cynical spin. And what's even more surprising is how the film now plays as a political comedy, as well as a thriller. After being suppressed for a quarter of a century after its first run, after becoming a legend that never turned up on home video, John Frankenheimer's 1962 masterpiece now re-emerges as one of the best and brightest of modern American films....

[livetohike]

1. Oh no another remake?

Can't Hollywood think of anything original to do?

The original movie is a classic. I guess this will appeal to those who never saw the original and it is updated for a new generation.

[seventhson]

2. I think it is a great idea

Remember the first one was censored and not released immediately because of the JFK assassination.

It is an essential story for Americans who cannot see past the faux news and pollyanish media.

[Muddleoftheroad]

41. It wasn't censored

Sinatra had it pulled.

[Tempest]

3. This is my all time favorite film

There is no way I would watch the remake.

Especially one which will deviate from the original as much as this one will, or with that hack actor Denzel Washington.

[seventhson]

12. How dare you insult Oscar winner Denzel

If you think Training Day was hack acting then you are certainly bound to hate a remake of your favorite film.

That film was not so great becuse of the acting (c'mon Lawrence Hwrvey was kinbda a hack actor as was the candidate's wife whatsername) - it was great because of the CONCEPT: that American traitors would use foreign agents to subvert democracy and enact a homicidal COUP.

That is the reality we face today.

It will be damn fine film I am sure and my apologies to Denzel for people who have no clue about what makes a great actor.

[Aries]

13. Bush couldn't have screwed things up more if he tried, so

maybe he IS trying! But if he's the puppet, who's the puppeteer?

His acting in the role of "President" reminds me of the robotic Laurence Harvey in the first version.

[Tempest]

17. There's a lot of hack Oscar winners

Training Day sucked. Big time sucked.

With the exception of Philadelphia, Cry Freedom and Glory, everything else Washington has been in has sucked. IMHO.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

20. Malcolm X and Mo Better Blues didn't suck. eom

[Tempest]

38. Didn't see either

I should have said the movies I've seen Washington in, which are most of them.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

40. I think he can do a really good job but he also makes bullshit movies.

I think you might enjoy the 2 I mentioned.

[Tempest]

42. Doubt I'll see them

Malcolm X is more than 3 hours long and I have a hard time sitting through a movie that long. And if I try to watch only a part of it, I'll never get around to seeing the rest of it.

Mo' Better Blues is a Spike Lee movie, and I'm no fan of Lee.

[seventhson]

37. You are just wromg. Malcolm X was incredible and oscar worthy

I liked the Bone Collector, and Mo Better Blues as well as Devil in a Blue Dress and that movie where he was pursued by possessed demonic beings.


You are simply and very wrong about Denzel...



And Training Day was incredible...

(shakes head) "some people....."

[Tempest]

39. Didn't see Malcolm X

I should have said the movies I've seen Washington in, which are most of them.

Training Day sucked.

Yes, some people.
What do you want to do, eliminate those you disagree with?

[seventhson]

44. Training Dasy was incredible IMHO

and I just disagree with you.

Malcolm X is a tour de force (and my late friend Atty. William Kunstler is in it)

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. Shouldn't it be called the Persian Candidate?

I really doubt it will be as good as the original.

[Aries]

5. Maybe it will get people thinking

and possibly read this:

The Search for the Manchurian Candidate--The CIA and Mind Control, by John Marks

From the Conclusion:

"...Tampering with the mind is much too dangerous to be left to the spies. Nor should it be the exclusive province of the behavioral scientists, who have given us cause for suspicion. Take this statement by their most famous member, B. F. Skinner: "My image in some places is of a monster of some kind who wants to pull a string and manipulate people. Nothing could be further from the truth. People are manipulated; I just want them to be manipulated more effectively." Such notions are much more acceptable in prestigious circles than people tend to think: D. Ewen Cameron read papers about "depatterning" with electroshock before meetings of his fellow psychiatrists, and they elected him their president. Human behavior is so important that it must concern us all. The more vigilant we and our representatives are, the less chance we will be unwitting victims."

[mrfrapp]

10. Candy Jones

Good overview of the Candy Jones story here.

[bobthedrummer]

22. B.F. Skinner practiced what he preached, Aries-he had a daughter

and raised her using behavior modification, reinforcement schedules, etc., he even placed her in a Skinner box.

She committed suicide.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

36. Snopes says False

http://www.snopes.com/science/skinner.asp

[bobthedrummer]

43. Thanks, I had heard this some time ago and accepted it-it came from

mainstream media interview with an activist. Snopes is a pretty reliable antidote to generally accepted stories, but I also do recall reading about him using reinforcement schedules etc. in raising his family, and had seen a pic too.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. Technical advisor boasted of having programmed Sirhan Sirhan.

Dr William Joseph Bryan Jr liked to brag about famous jobs he'd taken on for police departments and the CIA. For instance, he boasted to prostitutes about having hypnotized Albert Di Salvo, the convicted Boston Strangler, while Di Salvo was in custody. He also spoke about having worked with Sirhan. It didn't mean anything to the hookers, but the thing is, he never had access to Sirhan in custody. And here's a funny thing: in Sirhan's notebook of "automatic writing," the name "Di Salvo" is scribbled, though Sirhan claims to not recognize it. Perhaps Bryan couldn't keep from boasting of his past accomplishments, even with Sirhan under hypnosis. (More info in Turner and Christian's The Assassination of Robert F Kennedy.)


Anyway, the original film is untouchable.

I'll never tire of watching it. Just picked it up a couple of weeks ago on DVD.

[Imalittleteapot]

7. One of my favorite movies. If you haven't seen the

original you have missed a great one. A remake? I will see it -- anxious to see if it measures up to the first one.

[LeahMira]

8. Sounds like a good summertime film to see...

A remake? I will see it -- anxious to see if it measures up to the first one.

No one... absolutely no one could match Angela Lansbury for depicting pure, raw evil. She was so outstanding!!!

But I agree that it's time for a new generation to see an updated version... in color even! Denzel Washington will bring in the younger people. It will be interesting to see how they update the "brainwashing" part, since I don't think people really believe that any more... do they?

[Minstrel Boy]

9. "I don't think people really believe that any more... do they?"

What's unbelievable about brainwashing? There is much evidence supporting the case that Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized and brainwashed to be a programmed patsy for the murder of RFK. Even the prosecution admits he still suffers hypnotic blocks about the events of that night, but say they were self-induced.

FYI, I recommend Turner and Christian's The Assassination of Robert F Kennedy, and the RFK material in the anthology The Assassinations (http://www.theassassinations.com /).

[bobthedrummer]

35. Mind control is very real as many of the posts here show

yes, it will be interesting to see how this is handled in Demme's remake.

I agree about Angela Lansbury's performance.
Streep is an excellent actress, it will be interesting to compare.

[devilgrrl]

11. Word has it that the script is completely AWFUL

Though, I would like to see how Meryl Streep handles the Angela Lansbury character.

Let me ask you something, why doesn't Hollywood remake Bad movies into better movies and leave the classics alone?

[radwriter0555]

14. IT's DEMME. He's going to kick ass and take names on this..

it will be GREAT.

[Adelante]

15. With that cast

and Jonathan Demme, it's gotta be well done. I love the original, though.

[bobthedrummer]

16. I'm glad you started this thread, Aries, "The Manchurian Candidate"

original novel by Richard Condon, and the first movie fictionally encapsulated much of the real efforts by both the East and the West during the Cold War to develop methods to manipulate human perceptions, modify behavior, and directly control the actions of people without their knowledge.

"Commie brainwashing" was yet another fear of my childhood, I didn't want my brain washed by dirty communists-I knew as a child that that had to hurt even worse than getting shampoo in my eyes, and I needed clear vision to help spot all the commie spies that were in America.

Well, I'm 54 now, and all my childhood fears about brainwashing have been realized, in fact far surpassed, by operational mind control in the 21st century.

The use of that term-mind control, will immediately set off certain reactions in most casual readers, just like the negative associations I had as an American kid when I heard about communist brainwashing.

I'm not naive about what usually happens here at DU when anyone attempts to have any discussion about mind control, but I know that most DUer's and people in general recognize they are experiencing
many unsettling and even disturbing thoughts and feelings about all the world events since George W. Bush and his administration were installed, and that these thoughts and feelings intensified after 9/11.

My sole purpose in this post is to diminish the negative associations that the use of the term mind control have. I define it as the overt and covert use of anything to manipulate human perception, behavior and the human organism for any agenda.

US mind control research began in the CIA, as a proposal advanced by Richard McGarrah Helms in response to some US and UN military Korean War POW's making public statements against the war and even defecting.

It was generally thought that the USSR and it's allies had developed some new weapon or technique that was a threat to national security.
Allen Dulles approved Mr. Helms proposal on 4-13-53.

The research eventually involved at least 149 subprojects at 80 known institutions. Some of the names of these research programs were ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, SPELLBINDER and OFTEN, the main one was MKULTRA.
(source: 4-16-85 SCOTUS FOIA decision- CIA vs. Sims).

Richard McGarrah Helms continued mind control projects as Director of the CIA, they were the biggest secret within the organization, his final days at the CIA were spent destroying all documentation of them, but he overlooked about 16,000 operational files- which an investigative journalist gained court ordered access to in 2002.
http://www.rcfp.org/news/2002/0819kellyv.html

There is evidence from NSA that the mind control programs never ended.
Cheryl Welsh is a Californian that is recognized by the United Nations as an expert for her work as a mind control activist. She filed a FOIA request to NSA in 1995 and received a reply in 1997.


There is much unclassified evidence that mind control is part of our military's arsenal.
http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/thomas.html

Mind control was referenced in the original language of an Act of Congress, all the text dealing with "exotic weapons" disappeared from the revision.
http://www.raven1.net/govptron.htm

Mental health professionals have called for new diagnostic criteria for psychosis due to the reality of mind invasive technology.
http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/NewCrit-JPSS-CS2.htm

Mind control is real, folks. I just hope we can talk about it here without ridicule.

[Aries]

21. There is also the "Greenbaum speech" FWIW

given by Dr. D. Corydon Hammond..."delivered at the Fourth Annual Eastern Regional Conference on Abuse and Multiple Personality, Thursday June 25, 1992, at the Radisson Plaza Hotel, Mark Center, Alexandria, Virginia. Sponsored by the Center for Abuse Recovery & Empowerment, The Psychiatric Institute of Washington, D.C...."

http://tesserae.org/tess/places/gb.html

Excerpt:

"...When you start to find the same highly esoteric information in different states and different countries, from Florida to California, you start to get an idea that there's something going on that is very large, very well coordinated, with a great deal of communication and systematicness to what's happening. So I have gone from someone kind of neutral and not knowing what to think about it all to someone who clearly believes ritual abuse is real and that the people who say it isn't are either naive like people who didn't want to believe the Holocaust or -- they're dirty. ..."

"...I don't know what proportion, honestly, of patients have this. I would guess that maybe somewhere around at least fifty percent, maybe as high as three-quarters, I would guess maybe two-thirds of your ritual-abuse patients may have this. What do I think the distinguishing characteristic is? If they were raised from birth in a mainstream cult or if they were an non-bloodline person, meaning neither parent was in the Cult, but Cult people had a lot of access to them in early childhood, they may also have it. I have seen more than one ritual-abuse patient who clearly had all the kind of ritual things you hear about. They seemed very genuine. They talked about all the typical things that you hear in this population, but had none of this programming with prolonged extensive checking. So I believe in one case I was personally treating that she was a kind of schizmatic break-off that had kind of gone off and done their own thing and were no longer hooked into a mainstream group.

Here's where it appears to have come from. At the end of World War II, before it even ended, Allen Dulles and people from our Intelligence Community were already in Switzerland making contact to get out Nazi scientists. As World War II ends, they not only get out rocket scientists, but they also get out some Nazi doctors who have been doing mind-control research in the camps...."

Sounds bizarre, but truth is stranger than fiction.

[bobthedrummer]

25. I wonder who mentored the Health Alteration Committee's Sid Gottlieb?

One of the German doc's was Dr. G. Richard Wendt, he worked in the CASTIGATE program. I think some of the psychosurgeons like Tulane's Dr. Paul Hoch might have been an "import".


Btw, one of the leading debunkers of ritual abuse was deeply involved in mind control research, UCLA's Dr. Louis "Jolly" West.
Jolly West was also the proponent of the "study of violence".

Here's a partial list of some of the doc's involved in mind control programs:
Dr. Martin T. Orne
Dr. Ewen Cameron
Dr. L. Martin Greene
Dr. Phyllis Greenacre
Dr. John Gittinger-he was Sid Gottlieb's protage

Then you have some really sinister military/spook types like Col. Michael Aquino (Temple of Set founder, involved in the Presidio sex abuse case), Captain Morse Allen, Captain George White, Steve Aldrich.

The hidden history of these folks is absolutely horrifying. Many of the non-consensual human subjects came from the US military and military families.

They worked on making real "Manchurian Candidates" and worse.

[Aries]

30. The ubiquitous Louis Jolyon West...

Hey Bob, this guy was everyplace...as you know, I'm sure.

http://www.constitution.org/ocbpt/ocbpt_02.htm

"...A close associate of Drs. Cameron and Gottlieb, West studied the use of drugs as "adjuncts to interpersonal manipulation or assault," and was among one of the pioneers of remote electronic brain experimentation, including telemetric brain implants on unwitting subjects.

West's good friend, Aldous Huxley, suggested that he hypnotize his subjects before administering LSD, in order to give them post-hypnotic suggestions which would orient the drug-induced experience in a "desired direction."

Interestingly, West was the psychiatrist who examined Jack Ruby, the assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby's assertion that an ultra-Right-wing cabal was responsible for JFK's murder, and his refusal to admit insanity, led West to conclude that he was paranoid and mentally ill. West placed Ruby on anti-depressants, which did little to modify his claims of conspiracy. He died of cancer two years later, claiming to the end that he had been injected with cancerous biological material.

West also examined Sirhan Sirhan, a controlled hypo-patsy who allegedly killed Robert F. Kennedy. Currently chairman of UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute, West headed the American Psychological Association (APA) trauma response team that rushed to Oklahoma City in the wake of the disaster.

I interviewed Dr. West by phone. While confirming that he had indeed traveled to Oklahoma City with his team, the eminent psychiatrist made a curious "Freudian Slip." When asked if he had examined McVeigh, he said, "No, I haven't been asked to do that. I think his lawyer wouldn't want someone he didn't trus… pick."<201>

West nevertheless told me that someone from the FBI's Behavioral Sciences unit would have interviewed McVeigh. In fact the FBI's Behavioral Sciences unit did interview the prisoner. John Douglas of the FBI's Psychological Profile Unit was later quoted in the Times as saying, "This is an easily controlled and manipulated personality." What Douglas is unwittingly confirming is that McVeigh was perfect material for the CIA's psychological mind-control program...."


West was also on the Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation which attempts to debunk the claims of survivors of (ritualized) abuse, and has other CIA-linked founders, including Martin Orne.

All this is to say...if and when The Manchurian Candidate 2004 comes out in June, we would do well to view it with an informed point of view.

[bobthedrummer]

31. I was unaware of some of this info about his "clients"

wow, Jack Ruby AND Sirhan Sirhan.

Thanks for the link.

Maybe Anthony Hopkins could play him if a movie were made about Dr. Louis "Jolly" West!

[Octafish]

23. MK/ULTRA and assassination make an "interesting" GOOGLE.

To what bobthedrummer said I'd like to add what may prove a handy resource:

Resources on Drug Experimentation and Related Mind Control Experiments by the U.S. Government

http://www.gpc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/compositi...

For the sake of our nation, democracy, republic and Constitution, please bookmark.

[bobthedrummer]

28. I think this is a thread to save too, whether you are a Frank Sinatra

or Denzel Washington fan.

Here are some mind control links that I've found valuable for research and documentation. Many of the articles come from US government or US military sources-this is not about the space aliens or flying saucers, folks, but it is truly conspiratorial stuff.

http://www.datafilter.com/mc /

http://www.raven1.net/ravindex.htm

http://www.adacomp.net/~mcherney /

http://www.mindjustice.org/

[Minstrel Boy]

24. Thanks for your post, bob.

How can mind control remain a topic of free-fire ridicule, even here, when it's an area of long-standing, though reluctantly-admitted, interest to US military and intelligence agencies?

[bobthedrummer]

27. Just like suggested in the "Manchurian Candidate" the command

economy of the totalitarian former USSR was heavily involved in this-there is evidence of a covert "arms race" of sorts between US-USSR, which we also "won". Why would two competing and different political economies ever spend resources on something like this, unless it yielded concrete results???
http://www.mindjustice.org/book_frameset.htm

Another point is that just like the Bush family had a Third Reich profiteer, Prescott Bush-Richard McGarrah Helms maternal grandfather, Gates McGarrah was the first president of the future Nazi Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht's realized dream, The Bank for International Settlements/BIS created in 1930 by the world's central banks-including the Federal Reserve.

So we had two CIA Directors, G.H.W.Bush and Richard McGarrah Helms that came from families that did profit with Nazis!

And one of them, Helms, was the driving force behind US mind control.

Who needs tin foil, we are dealing with reality that seems unbelievable-at first.

[robertpaulsen]

18. The synopsis doesn't bode well

On your link to the 2004 version, it says that Raymond Shaw is the candidate for VP. Why? In the original it was Angela Lansbury's husband who was the VP candidate. Yes, its a great cast and great director. But the original script was brilliant. Updating is one thing, but fucking with the story is a mistake.

I also agree with the earlier post that the title should be changed to The Persian Candidate or The Arabian Candidate. Nothing Manchurian about this movie, unless they're making some post-modern commentary within the remake on the original.

[bobthedrummer]

19. I doubt that the remake will surpass the original

it had such a great cast, Angela Lansbury was perfectly cast imo- plus it was filmed in glorious black&white!

[goclark]

26. Denzel Is My Man

and I love all the other actors too.
It was one of my favor movies and I can't wait to see the remake.

[bobthedrummer]

29. Demme did gather quite a good cast.

I'm a huge Streep fan.

[bobthedrummer]

32. Someone should remake that movie with Charles Bronson, "Telefon"

it dealt with unwitting programmed Soviet deep cover agents in America that could be activated with a phone call and a key word phrase to carry out acts of sabotage.

Charles Bronson played a good guy KGB dude seeking to prevent a renegade agent (who had the phonebook containing the unwitting programmed agents numbers) from starting a war.

It wasn't "The Manchurian Candidate" but did have a similar theme,
mind control.

[Faygo Kid]

33. I for one am looking forward to it.

I think Denzel will be great; Meryl may have the tougher role, topping Angela Lansbury. Big Sinatra fan here, but Denzel will be superb. This is one I will pay to see - and I don't pay to see many.

[bobthedrummer]

34. It will be interesting to see how they get around the McCarthyesque

step-dad, and how the Oedipus complex component is handled.