“Why?” is the one question that no longer matters in Hollywood, ignored by marketing-oriented studios that need not think beyond “when,” “who,” and “what.” The answer to “when” is simple enough: Formulaic romances get released in the spring, loud blockbusters in the summer, light-hearted comedies in the autumn, and award-hopefuls in the winter. “Who” is a no-brainer: The roster of today’s A-listers, from Cruise to Hanks to Witherspoon, could be recited by most ten-year-olds. “What” has become more compartmentalized than ever, reduced to the rigid genres of action, thrillers, romances, epics, comedies, or hybrids thereof.
That the question “why?” has faded into oblivion is particularly apparent during the annual onslaught of blockbuster season. Why did Troy neglect the scope and context of Homer’s Iliad? Why did The Stepford Wives reduce its ambitions to slapstick and one-liners? Why did anyone think a three-cell daily comic strip warranted Garfield: The Movie? There are no answers because these questions were never seriously asked. Sure, studios figured out who should star in Troy in order to attract the teenage girls, when Stepford Wives should be released to maximize exposure, and what tone should be used in Garfield to pacify families. After (or before) all that, why ask “why?”
Obviously, profits have always dominated the industry’s decisions, but in recent years the situation has intensified considerably. Because movie studios now take a greater percentage of ticket sales in the first weekend of a film’s run, the industry is now obsessed with a profit window of mere days. There was a time when films had weeks and months to find an audience and make an impact. Now films are marketed to maximize their opening-week grosses, and are declared successes or failures by the second day of their opening weekend.
This condensed world of the one-week hit has no room for the artistic question of “why?” It carries too much financial risk, and can easily throw off the reliable rewards of a solid what-who-and-when plan. Honestly, think about it: If a movie studio got pitched on a romance starring Brad Pitt to be released on Valentine’s Day, would the film’s story, let alone its reason to exist, really matter? Modern mainstream cinema is like those tawdry confections turned out by grocery-store bakeries: It’s all about the frosting, with the cake an afterthought at best.
It is no surprise, then, that remakes and sequels figure more prominently than ever in today’s Hollywood. Financially, they are the sure bets, drawing on the success of earlier works and guaranteed to attract some level of interest with minimal advertising. Just consider this partial list of 2004 sequels and remakes: Barbershop 2, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Dawn of the Dead, The Ladykillers, The Whole Ten Yards, Van Helsing, Shrek 2, The Stepford Wives, Around the World in 80 Days, Spider-Man 2, Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, The Chronicles of Riddick, Before Sunset, Exorcist: The Beginning, Taxi, Shall We Dance?, The Ring 2, and Ocean’s Twelve, among others.
But I’m still compelled to ask the dreaded “why” this month: Why remake The Manchurian Candidate? Of all the classics to be remodeled and reissued, why this one, and why now?
Director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) and screenwriter Dean Georgaris (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life) surely see aspects in the original that lend themselves to an update. The 1962 film, based on the Richard Condon novel, stars Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra as Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw and Major Bennett Marco, two American soldiers brainwashed by Chinese communists during the Korean War. Shaw is unwittingly programmed to carry out an assassination and sent home; Marco becomes aware of the plot and must try to stop his friend. The most obvious of Demme’s revisions are substituting the 1991 Gulf War, changing the enemies from one-dimensional communists to evil-doing terrorists, altering the film’s most prominent female role from senator’s wife Angela Lansbury to vice president Meryl Streep, and using a black actor—Denzel Washington—for the Sinatra role.
Those revisions may be all well and good, but in tone and feel, this remake will almost surely fall short of the original (which is being released on DVD this month). Its trailer pitches the 2004 Candidate as a thriller—the countdown to an assassination—timed perfectly for mid-summer. While this is enough to answer Paramount’s what, who, and when, it misses the intangibles that liberated the 1962 version and allowed it to transcend the ordinary.
I continue to be amazed by the original. Here is a film that does not spoon-feed, but trusts us to keep pace. Through Shaw’s stepfather, a senator obsessed with communism and a clear satire of Joseph McCarthy, Candidate portrays the equal perils of both communism and the illogical national hysteria it inspired. Shaw’s mother, Mrs. Iselin (Lansbury), manipulates both her husband and son into unwittingly supporting a communist plot, allowing the film to turn the tables on gender roles, familial iconography, politicians, and the naiveté of blind patriotism.
I am also swept up in the assured style of then-young director John Frankenheimer, who never again attained the success he found here. In Candidate he strikes a balance between the realistic side of the film’s story and the surreal, expressionistic depiction of Shaw’s distorted worldview; he also creates a seamless union between the populist conventions of a thriller, such as the story’s assassination sequence in Madison Square Garden, and biting, acerbic commentary, as when Senator Iselin uses a Heinz ketchup bottle to arrive at the figure of fifty-seven communists in the State Department. Looking again at the film, you could say that Frankenheimer is, in fact, urging us to ask “why?” in regard to communist dangers and conspiratorial plots. You could also say he was almost too successful, prophesizing a culture that would soon be overcome with Kennedy’s assassination and its attendant conspiracy theories, the growing debacle in Vietnam, Cold War fears (and fear-mongering), and cynicism bred by corrupt leaders.
The original Candidate also has stood the test of time, in that today it calls up a whole new generation of references. Iselin’s manipulation of her husband and the press parallels Vice President Dick Cheney’s behind-closed-doors manipulation of the Bush White House and the administration’s unprecedented cleverness in staging photo ops. The very nature of “brainwashing” suggests the rewriting of past and future, and links curiously to today’s unblemished canonizing of Ronald Reagan. And Iselin’s plan to use the threat of terrorism as a tool for the communist cause is eerily reminiscent of the jingoistic speeches from politicians and pundits during the months and years after 9/11.
Granted, it’s possible that Demme could give us a film that comments on overreactions to terrorism, tears down our elected officials, implicates the American government in collaborating with terrorists—and conveys all this while keeping us on our toes with a fresh visual approach and style. But given the promotions of his version and the current state of the Hollywood movie machine, not to mention the general tone that prevails in post-9/11 America, it’s doubtful that such relevance will emerge from 2004’s Candidate.
There’s also something intangible that goes awry with many remakes, a shortcoming that was most evident in Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho. Van Sant updated Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece using a faithful, shot-by-shot methodology. Yet even with the same dialogue, story, and camerawork, he failed to recapture the power of what Hitchcock did with temptation, greed, guilt, and murder. It’s one of the most interesting failures in the history of film, proving that something is to be said for t
he metaphysical “being” of a film. There is something alive in the expression of a new vision that cannot be replicated in a remake. Really, is there any way that The Manchurian Candidate in 2004 can have the same spontaneity and impact?
This remake in particular angers me because nothing constructive can come of it. The original film strived to break the mold and buck the very system that is now remaking it. Given its timing and its position as a commercial work of escapism, the story that once rose above its structure will now be pressured to stay in line with formulas and expectations. Will terrorism be explored in equal proportion to communism, or the plotting of 2004 neo-conservatives to that of 1962 anticommunist government officials? Instead of remaking Candidate, I’d love Demme to take the current news of war, terror, and corruption and apply it to a new story that could carve its own path, much like Three Kings’ balance of action sequences and war profiteering, Wag The Dog’s mix of comedy and media commentary, and even The Terminal’s light-hearted laughs at the expense of the Department of Homeland Security.
I know why this film is being remade. It fits the industry’s needs and financial projections. I just think it’s sad that the innovative original will be obscured by this more marketable remake. Rather than why, maybe it’s time to tackle “how”: How can we turn this trend around? Like any good capitalist, I’d suggest starting with your wallet.