The Manchurian Candidate

Jonathan Demme directed this updated remake of John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco (Denzel Washington) and Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber) are two soldiers who ...more

For all of Jonathan Demme's formidable skill behind the camera, his greatest talent is his ability to utilize close-ups. His innate humanism, his interest in whomever he films, comes through every time Denzel Washington's anxious face fills the frame in The Manchurian Candidate. This film only works if the viewer feels Marco's anxiety, paranoia, and frustration. Washington communicates these things with the smallest of facial tics and the subtlest shifts in his eyes. Demme's camera captures ...more