The Manchurian Candidate
Quinn Bailey

Review by Quinn Bailey Pro

The Manchurian Candidate 1962

★★★★★

Watched 22 Dec 2015

"Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."

A masterpiece of hallucinatory paranoia from start to finish, and one of my favorite films ever made. The direction is pitch-perfect - every light source, every camera movement, every prop in the frame is calculated for maximum meaning and impact. The plot is hypnotic, drawing you further and further into the film's distrustful atmosphere until it's impossible to escape. The cast is superb, but Angela Lansbury is the obvious standout, and enough has been said about her role that I don't feel I could add any more. Nothing short of genius.

On a side note, I finally watched this with the Frankenheimer commentary, and dear lord is it worth it. Frankenheimer is carefully spoken and incredibly insightful, and I'll probably be trying to recreate some of the techniques he spoke about in my later films.

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