"The remake is a piece of crap. There is no other way to look at it, I'm afraid."
I'm with Bruce on this one. I'd call this movie "misbegotten," because the filmmakers started off on the wrong foot with their whole central concept and from then on they were doomed. One reason for the power of the Condon/Frankenheimer original was that it tapped into the zeitgeist of its time, the cold war, when this country was scared to death of Soviet Communists. At the time of the remake, the country was scared to death of foreign terrorists. But what did they choose for their menace in the remake? Big business. As I said, doomed from the git-go.
My bigger problem with the remake is on a storytelling level. Lawrence Harvey's character is much more interesting than Frank Sinatra's in the original. I give credit to Sinatra for staying faithful to the book and allowing another actor to have some of the meatiest scenes.
For the remake, they gave many of the Harvey character's best scenes to Denzel, instead of keeping them with Liev Schreiber. They clearly wanted to make a film with a dominant protagonist instead of dual protagonists. It upends the whole narrative, and they had to give some of the investigative scenes from the Sinatra character to the equivalent of the Janet Leigh character as a result. This completely ruins the final confrontation at the political rally.
I like certain choices in the remake, for example I LOVE the choice to stage the entire finale to a cheerful, optimistic pop song, like campaigns normally use. It's a brilliant counterpoint to the darkness of the sequence.
Thanks for the head's up about the promo. The search for the unheard and discarded score continues....
In fairness, I don't know exactly what those 18 tracks consist of. I looked at it once, years ago at Amoeba, and I think it had more Portman music, but I wouldn't swear to it.
1 Overture 3:05 2 Some Soul from Seoul 7:50 3 Theme from The Manchurian Candidate (Jazz Version) 5:35 4 Queen of Diamonds 4:13 5 Cantina Latina, Korea 1952 7:10 6 Politicans on Parade 1:50 7 Unrequited Love 7:44 8 Slightly Manchurian Blues 4:40 9 Dare to Dream 3:37 10 Long Road to the White House 8:33 11 Return of a Hero 2:46 12 Home Again, 1952 5:40 13 Theme from The Manchurian Candidate (Main Title) 1:43
I believe it runs over an hour counting the running times of each cue, but don't quote me. Definitely more substantial than what Varese had released.
I can definitely see both versions of Portman's score being released at some point as a two disc set like Quartet did with Kiss The Girls with Mark Isham's more effective score as well as Carter Burwell's gothic score that is very unique but didn't suit the film as a 3 disc set.
Speaking of which, where's Portman's complete score to "The Truth About Charlie" which is the remake of Charade. I'm pretty sure there was another score written for that film by her than the final one used going on with what happend with Beloved and Manchurian and Director Jonathan Demme's personal tastes.
Absolutely love Demme's The Manchurian Candidate, a masterpiece of conspirationist anguish, so superbly directed. And it's my favorite Rachel Portman. I like a lot of her lovely scores, but for some reason it's this one, one of her few - if not her only - dark score that resonates with me.
Absolutely love Demme's The Manchurian Candidate, a masterpiece of conspirationist anguish, so superbly directed. And it's my favorite Rachel Portman. I like a lot of her lovely scores, but for some reason it's this one, one of her few - if not her only - dark score that resonates with me.
I agree with all of this. Good film. Haunting score.
Now we've heard from those who liked the film as well as those of us who didn't. As Mark Twain said, "It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races."
Because I've mercifully forgotten almost the entire movie, I found James's insights very interesting. Even though he was bothered more about a different issue than the one I'd raised, in both cases it comes down to a fatal misconception in the very foundation of the story.
As to the use of music in the climax -- one of the many things I'd forgotten -- when I looked at the video link I noted that the ironically cheery source music eventually gives way to suspenseful dramatic underscore. I wonder what the effect might have been if they'd stayed with the source music all the way through.
