The Manchurian Candidate Film Techniques

Released in 1962, The Manchurian Candidate, produced and directed by John Frankenheimer, is a film about a Medal of Honor winner who is brainwashed by communists in order to carry out a plan to assassinate a presidential candidate. Set during the early years of Cold War, The Manchurian Candidate plays on the contemporary fear, known as McCarthyism, that members of the communist’s party plan to take over America by using brainwashing techniques and infiltrating government agencies. During his time, John Frankenheimer was famous for his “innovative camera angles”, which can be found in almost every scene throughout the movie. These camera angles, as well as other various film techniques such as mise-en-scène and editing and sound techniques,

The entire scene, which is taken in one long shot, begins with a shot of the door to Gaines’s bedroom. Then we see only the back of a man, who we assume is Raymond, only recognizable by his emotionless voice, open the door. The rest of the scene continues this way; one side of the frame shows Raymond’s back and the other shows Mr. Gaines lying in his bed. This perspective of Raymond suggests that he is not even a person; rather, he is just a body, a mere puppet, that is blindly carrying out someone else’s orders because he is incapable of making his own choices. As Raymond walks into the room and moves closer to Mr. Gaines, ominous music begins to play and becomes increasingly louder until Raymond’s entire back takes up the entire frame, resulting in a completely black screen, suggesting that Raymond has carried out his orders. The threatening music and the shot ending in a black screen before Raymond kills Gaines further shows that Raymond has no agency because they give viewers the sense that someone is controlling

The scene opens with a close-up on a queen of diamonds costume and zooms out to capture both the costume and Eleanor Shaw in a single frame. Throughout the movie, the queen of diamonds serves as a trigger that places Raymond Shaw in a state in which he is fully under the control of whomever speaks to him. The zoom-out technique to begin the scene and the placement of the queen of diamonds next to Eleanor Shaw suggests that she is the queen of diamonds, and that Raymond, who is sitting in a chair in front of her, is under her control. As Eleanor gives Raymond his instructions, the shot is not only a close-up of her face, but also at an angle that makes viewers seem as if they are looking up at her, placing her in a position of higher authority. The scene is also completely silent during the time Eleanor delivers her orders, which helps viewers focus on the intensity of her voice since there is no other sound to listen to but her voice. The placement of the queen of diamonds, close-up and angle of Eleanor’s face in the frame, and silence during the time she speaks allows viewers to focus on Eleanor as someone in a position of total control, or someone who beholds force. According to Simone Weil, force is something that deprives someone of his or her agency. In her essay “The Iliad,