What have they built you to do? : the Manchurian candidate and Cold War America / Matthew Frye Jacobson and Gaspar González.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jacobson, Matthew Frye, 1958-

Contributor:

González, Gaspar, 1968-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manchurian candidate (Motion picture : 1962).

Condon, Richard. Manchurian candidate.

Condon, Richard.

Cold War.

Physical Description:

xv, 234 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2006]

Summary:

Considered by many to be the best political thriller ever made, The Manchurian Candidate is as entertaining, troubling, and relevant today as it was in 1962. Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Angela Lansbury, and directed with probing insight by John Frankenheimer, the film was widely acclaimed as a masterpiece. Largely out of circulation for the next two decades, it acquired a well-deserved cult following until it was rereleased during the last year of the Reagan presidency, when its pointed satire of political and media manipulation seemed more timely than ever.

In What Have They Built You to Do?-a key line of dialogue from the original film-Matthew Frye Jacobson and Gaspar Gonzalez undertake an ambitious reexamination of The Manchurian Candidate, the 1959 novel by Richard Condon on which it was based, and-critically analyzed here for the first time-the 2004 remake directed by Jonathan Demme. Based on close readings of the film and broad investigations into the eras in which it was made and rediscovered, the authors decode the many layers of meaning within and surrounding the film, from the contradictions of the Cold War it both embodies and parodies-McCarthyism and Kennedy liberalism, individualism and conformity-to its construction of Asian villains, overbearing women, and male heroes in a society anxious about race, gender, and sexuality. Through their multifaceted analysis of The Manchurian Candidate (in all its incarnations), Jacobson and Gonzalez raise provocative questions about power and anxiety in American politics and society from the Cold War to today.

Contents:

1 Backstory: Frank Sinatra and the Politics of Cold War Cultural Production 1

2 A Culture of Contradiction: Affluence and Anxiety 30

3 Five from the Fifties: Threat, Containment, and the Rise of the Security State in Postwar Film 52

4 Bullwhip and Smear: Reading McCarthy 82

5 Like Fu Manchu: Mapping Manchuria 100

6 The Red Queen: Sexuality, Subversion, and the American Family 130

7 Strangers on a Train: The Perils of Cold War Courtship 150

8 Cold War Redux: From Kennedy to Reagan's America and Beyond 168.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-218) and index.

ISBN:

0816641242

9780816641246

0816641250

9780816641253

OCLC:

70230660

Publisher Number:

9780816641246

9780816641253

Online:

Publisher description