Post by klep on Nov 7, 2016 8:37:42 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/7: The Manchurian Candidate
The Cold War was a strange and frightening time. The threat of nuclear war created an intense atmosphere of paranoia that had people looking over their shoulders and suspecting their neighbors. There was no scheme too outlandish for the Commies to pull in their efforts to undermine the West.
It was in this atmosphere that The Manchurian Candidate was released. It posits a scheme whereby the Chinese created a war hero with hypnotic conditioning to do whatever they wanted - even and especially kill. Though we know now that this is extraordinarily unlikely, at the time anything seemed possible. Even today, the prospect of a foreign power co-opting or having undue influence over a major political figure here in the US has become an issue in the Presidential election.
The Manchurian Candidate first screened in 1962, but it's set in 1954, the height of the Red Scare. This is not an accident, as the Communist plot revolves around staging an assassination to spread further fear of the Red Menace - fear which would be exploited. It's a really clever trick by the film, and one that would have been impossible for it to pull even a few years earlier. By making the scaremongers patsies of those they warn against, it makes a mockery of them and exposes the dangers of that kind of jingoistic fervor - the same fervor Hollywood itself had fallen prey to with the blacklists.
The lesson of the film then is simple, and one Mark Twain perhaps said it best.
"We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter -- exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place -- the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan."
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/14: The Emperor's New Groove
Our next Movie of the Week is a palate cleanser after the election, Disney's offbeat animated feature The Emperor's New Groove. It is available for rent on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/3: American Honey
After a particularly contentious episode of the podcast, we'll have a thread for discussing the film along with some essays from group members. You may be able to find American Honey in a theater near you.
The Cold War was a strange and frightening time. The threat of nuclear war created an intense atmosphere of paranoia that had people looking over their shoulders and suspecting their neighbors. There was no scheme too outlandish for the Commies to pull in their efforts to undermine the West.
It was in this atmosphere that The Manchurian Candidate was released. It posits a scheme whereby the Chinese created a war hero with hypnotic conditioning to do whatever they wanted - even and especially kill. Though we know now that this is extraordinarily unlikely, at the time anything seemed possible. Even today, the prospect of a foreign power co-opting or having undue influence over a major political figure here in the US has become an issue in the Presidential election.
The Manchurian Candidate first screened in 1962, but it's set in 1954, the height of the Red Scare. This is not an accident, as the Communist plot revolves around staging an assassination to spread further fear of the Red Menace - fear which would be exploited. It's a really clever trick by the film, and one that would have been impossible for it to pull even a few years earlier. By making the scaremongers patsies of those they warn against, it makes a mockery of them and exposes the dangers of that kind of jingoistic fervor - the same fervor Hollywood itself had fallen prey to with the blacklists.
The lesson of the film then is simple, and one Mark Twain perhaps said it best.
"We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter -- exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place -- the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan."
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 11/14: The Emperor's New Groove
Our next Movie of the Week is a palate cleanser after the election, Disney's offbeat animated feature The Emperor's New Groove. It is available for rent on Amazon Instant Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 11/3: American Honey
After a particularly contentious episode of the podcast, we'll have a thread for discussing the film along with some essays from group members. You may be able to find American Honey in a theater near you.