In The Manchurian Candidate, little is as it appears to be. A medal of honour turns out to have been granted for a fake act of bravery. A politician who claims to be the last man standing between American values and Communism is a shill for his country’s enemies. A game of cards isn’t just a game of cards.
John Frankenheimer’s neve-wracking thriller is suffused with the feeling that comes from being in a topsy-turvy world. The Manchurian Candidate is filmed too in a style that accentuates its strangeness. The 1962 black-and-white classic is available on Prime Video.
The lensing, framing and lighting by Lionel Lindon have an unnatural, heightened quality. Dramatic close-ups, unusual compositions and the choice of lenses distort the actual scale of characters or their backdrops.
At times, the faces of characters crowd the screen. Events seen through the eyes of disturbed characters have a hallucinatory quality. The entire effect is one of throwing the viewew off guard – perfect for a film about deception, mind control and insidious propaganda.
Robert Shaw (Laurence Harvey) has returned in 1952 from the Korea War a mental wreck….
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