The film The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and something called the Manchurian Candidate Theory is something which is possibly fact and based upon the title of the 1959 novel by author Richard Condon (1915-95).
The theory is this. A person may be hypnotised into doing something like killing another person or something as little as giving up cigarettes or eating dog excrement. The assassin who killed Bobby Kennedy (1925-68 shot), Sirhan Sirhan (1944-) claimed in a 1977 parole hearing that he was one such candidate who couldn’t remember his crime due to hypnotism. He did not get released and that was probably because of the possible floodgates being opened of other criminals claiming the same thing. But is it so farfetched?
Condon’s novel, which was probably the best of his oeuvre of political thrillers was filmed twice, once in 1962 and again in 2004 starring Liev Schreiber (1967-). There are substantial changes to the book and between the movies. Another Condon novel which made a good and underrated movie was Winter Kills (1979) while the mob movie Prizzi’s Honour took a more light-hearted view of assassins.
Whether the Manchurian Candidate Theory is one which holds water was perhaps hinted at when it was said the original version of the movie was pulled from circulation for many years by Frank Sinatra (1915-98 heart attack) as a show of respect and perhaps paranoia after the assassination of John F. Kennedy (1917-63 shot) in 1963. Assassin Lee Harvey Oswald (1939-63 shot) was another candidate of Soviet brainwashing or thought reform or mind control.
Brainwashing is said to reduce the subject’s ability to think critically or independently to allow the introduction of new, unwanted thoughts and ideas into their minds as well as to change their attitudes values and beliefs. Are drugs and/or torture used to create this state of mind?
The idea for the Manchurian candidate goes back to the Korean War with soldiers being brainwashed by Chinese government practitioners and thus the material in Condon’s book was timely. A more modern example are perhaps the religious cults like that of Jim Jones (1931-79 suicide) in Guyana and some would argue the Church of Scientology. Also see a section of the Parallax View (1974) with the use of subliminal imagery as another possibly subconscious hypnotism tool.
The Korean War had soldiers defect and collaborate with the Chinese…. For example, Clarence Adams (1930-99 no cause) was an African American GI during the Korean War. Captured by the Chinese in 1950, he was one of 21 Americans who chose to settle in China and was considered a defector. During the war, he made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi telling black soldiers not to fight. He returned to the United States and opened a Chinese restaurant in Memphis without too much fanfare except the fact he would never be in the military again. A lover of Chinese culture if not political philosophy until the end.
As for the Manchurian Candidate and the movie is on a broad scale with Sergeant Raymond Shaw and his platoon (named after characters from the Bilko tv show) being captured by Sino- Soviet military and brainwashed into thinking they are at home at a flower show discussing flowers when really they are hosted by military brass in uniform hypnotised into a facade. Once returned to the United States each are a kind of sleeper cell but it is Shaw in particular who has an Oedipal relationship with his mother played by Angela Lansbury (1925-2022) who is the most prone. In the book she apparently uses him as a tool as they travel the world to kill political figures. Simply by showing him the card the queen of diamonds during a game of solitaire.
Frank Sinatra is another of the platoon to have nightmares from the brainwashing and works as a very troubled intelligence officer. Shaw’s mother is KGB and a ruthless woman married to an overt and rabid anti-Communist and like the queen of diamonds they mean success, wealth and power. One must question if the whole of the modern world is built upon the Manchurian Candidate Theory. Are people hypnotised in institutions such as prisons, hospitals and other places where they have their minds washed of their own beliefs and if not forced then they are unable to resist and must accept the bidding of those who hold the queen of diamonds, or who look them in the eye with the snap of their fingers? Does it just take a Svengali-like glance from the eyes of the perpetrator into that of the innocent sleeper for them to be compelled to commit not only murder but sex crimes and other anti-social acts.
Further, when you look at John Hinckley Jr (1955-) and Mark Chapman (1955-) and it is their own brainwashing at the hands of fictional material such as the movie Taxi Driver and Catcher in the Rye respectively. So you can wonder if even fiction can influence the minds of those on the edge of reality to lose their minds as well. Thus we have censorship and publishers who do not let certain authors ever to get published
To even go further, we have the works of that massive bestseller known as the Bible which can be interpreted by those however they want. Brainwashing by ministries seeking money appears to show this book remains the most influential of all time for good and for evil. The key to the Bible appears to be some sort of mass hypnotism as worshippers who have already read passages of the Bible gather together in unity. Christianity is strange due to its reputed hypocrisy, especially the use of psalms et cetera as well as other pieces of wisdom to shield Christians themselves or even to attack agnostics and atheists, let alone hypocritical Christians. As a political doctrine it does not work but it has caused what passes for civilisation on this planet to flourish. This is by far the most effective mass delusion of all time…. Based on fiction or non-fiction? Chinese whispers said the Communists!
Brainwashing movies could also be described as propaganda movies such as those produced in Nazi Germany while others could include the zombie movies of the mid-30s onwards such as Revolt of the Zombies (1936) until the rabid bite zombie flicks of 1967 onwards … Hey maybe we could call the zombie virus some kind of living thing with its will being forced to brainwash the human host to eat brains!
Going back to brainwashing via fiction and dubious non fiction and it is when the line is blurred between where there is a new reality formed about certain institutions and events leading to consumers of mass entertainment such as movies and books to become brainwashed by ‘facts’ they mistakenly recognise as a new reality from this fiction and the reality of their own amorphous minds. Thus the viewer or reader makes a subconscious choice in accepting and sorting the material they are consciously consuming and are being brainwashed by as either real or not. All for watching current affairs, seeing conspiracy movies and reading say The Da Vinci Code. We forget most, but it is that suspension of disbelief which has us in some sort of a trance and so the world is built upon some sort of Manchurian Candidate Theory.
And this goes for teachers and politicians who guide us through everyday lives – and beware your mother and father … no one can help themselves – we have all been brainwashed to some degree, some worse than others … some devastatingly so. If you look at George Orwell’s 1984 (1984) and we see a brainwashing tale par excellence as our hapless protagonist Winston Smith keeps a forbidden diary and begins a relationship with his co- worker Julia only to be exposed naked in bed with her by a party agent. Such things are forbidden … and there is a hatred, a seething hate which is released in rants by the general population. Where even sexuality maybe repressed.
Winston’s crime of intimate love and thinking for himself makes him an outcast who must face the consequences … One + One = Three being the key to forming what is logical, what doctrine is forced on you (as logical) and what you are free to believe whether you are right or wrong. Winston is repressed and so it would seem is the whole world which is now spent on it being unable to make up its mind or create intimacy since real love is no longer an option.
Winston has been tortured endlessly as we see the worst form of brainwashing. A more tragic type of scene happens at the end of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985).
And we can see this happening to people in our institutions today to the point where they are most certainly ‘kaput’ in terms of the way they once thought, behaved or even sadly, loved. Myself included after graciously staying in the local institution I was tortured endlessly mentally to the point where I can no longer sleep and when I do I no longer dream the same, or behave the same…. And that torture continues. All my good habits were erased, all of my clean and clear thinking as well. It has taken months after further bullying by those who live by the code of the institute as well as the underworld leave my and other inner Winston’s to live in this so-called socialist society in some sort of anxiety-riddled peace where their former dreams and aspirations have been erased.
To say to myself One + One = Three is no longer a crime, it is right, even though it is essentially wrong. My thought crimes still come wildly sailing out of my mind, or are they simply implanted by the previous brainwashing? There is nothing worse than a sociopath hooked on remnant on your wavelength with intent and an idee fixe to torture.
As for Sergeant Raymond Shaw in the Manchurian candidate, I couldn’t but help feel sorry for him as a chance encounter at a bar with Frank Sinatra has him literally “go jump in the lake” … I felt for Shaw’s aspirations of love, I felt for the fact that his mother helped destroy him, I felt for the fact that nobody even liked him and Laurence Harvey (1928-73 cancer) was perfect for the role… To turn a quote from the movie upside-down: ‘Raymond Shaw maybe the kindest, bravest, warmest most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life’ … as the platoon is brainwashed to say, but it just also goes to show that society brainwashes people to say and to do the right thing. It’s a cult line from a cult movie. Beware which cult you belong to.
Cult Film Alley 