File #9 Manchurian Candidate/The Donkey Agenda

The Manchurian Candidate is by all means a political thriller and depending on how you look at it you can interpret it different ways. On the one hand you can take Frank Sinatra’s character as a troubled conservative unhappy with the way things are run and possibly morphing into the opposition as the film goes on. There is no denying the obvious nod towards Republican senator Joseph McCarthy with Sen. John Yerkes Iselin and one could easily claim that the film conveys the typical liberal notion that the government and corporations traumatize innocent people into brainwashed killers. Another possible hint is the reaction Raymond Shaw has when meeting the Jordans, which he grows to like very much and who more likely than not are Democrats. The sheer appearance difference between the Jordans and the Iselins is also quite telling. Shaw’s mother dresses very conservatively, showing little skin while young Jocelyn thinks nothing of ripping off her shirt to wrap around Shaw’s leg before riding off on a bicycle. The same could be seen with Sen. Iselin and Sen. Jordan where one wears suits while the other first appears in relaxed wear. You could also presuppose that Mrs. Iselin serves as the human figure of conservatism wherein she finds it necessary to tell her son how he should do things.

Frank Sinatra’s dramatic war film characters seem to share a certain lack of naivety that their musical counterparts share. It is as if they are hardened versions of the musical characters sharing little more than the same face between them. Frank Sinatra acts more like a boy in his earlier films; one in which the world of women, pain, and loss remain a mystery. His older roles, on the contrary, share a sense of progression in that regard. These films so a maturity in the place of childhood, regret in the place of romantic longing and wisdom in the place of innocence, like a puppy thrown in a furnace reborn a junkyard dog. The glimmer of his former characters still twinkling in his eyes but noticeably stricken with the ravages of time.