Week 4: The Manchurian Candidate

Film #4: The Manchurian Candidate (1962), dir. John Frankenheimer

This film centers on veteran Raymond Shaw, part of a prominent political family. Shaw is brainwashed by communists after his Army platoon is captured. He returns to civilian life in the United States, where he becomes an unwitting assassin in an international communist conspiracy. The group, which includes representatives of the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union, plans to assassinate the presidential nominee of an American political party, with the death leading to the overthrow of the U.S. government. The film was released in the United States on October 24, 1962, at the height of U.S.–Soviet hostility during the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

• The Manchurian Candidate has been called one of the most "iconic" films of the Cold War period, especially in its discussion of "mind-control," with one of the major plot points being the popular Cold War myth that China was brainwashing US soldiers for communist purposes during the Korean War. Do you think such paranoia is still relevant to our current political climate? How so?

WEEK 3 SLIDES:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1YBhfYNfgtAfAbF8Umjh-akbo9VmC8hC_b6CnltsewRc/edit?usp=sharing

WEEK 4 SLIDES:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ngwhNMrhIiTJRbe9agIJYF-JhMWpmvXc-vkKy53EJjw/edit?usp=sharing