"The Manchurian Candidate", 2004

During lessons, we watched a portion of "Manchurian Candidate", 1962 and the entire 2004 version. We did this to gain greater knowledge of the thriller genre, and to witness the difference between an original film and it's remake.
We began by watching the 1962 version. The film was rather ambiguous, but I managed to grasp the plotline. After watching around 30 minutes of the original, we moved onto the remake.
Instantly, the film differed. The opening scenes were changed, and the 'brain-washing' section of the film wasn't disclosed until later on in the film. In addition, some elements of the original were modernized.
The battle was moved from China to Iraq, and the war was changed from the Korean War to the Gulf War. In addition, the effects provided changed, though mainly due to the difference in the order of events. The original film showed the events in a chronological order; we knew the problem from the beginning and we were following our protagonist who was trying to solve the mystery. In the remake, however, we followed the protagonist's journey of trying to establish want happened; we were kept in the unknown as much as the character. In a sense, this allowed us to become more attached with the central characters.
Although the film can generally be categorised as a thriller, it can also be placed into various sub-genres. These include: paranoid thriller, political thriller, and Greek tragedy. The Greek tragedy genres links back to the Oedipus complex within the film. The Oedipus complex is is a group of largely unconscious (dynamically repressed) ideas and feelings which concentrate on the desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex. The psychoanalytic theory is named after the Greek myth of Oedipus who, unknowingly, kills his father and marries his mother.
One reason why the film is classed as a thriller is the dramatics. The director wanted to exaggerate the film, meaning that everything would be sadder, darker and stranger than real life.
Moreover, Tak Fujimoto, the remake's cinematographer, changed the death of Senator Jordan. Fujimoto, and the rest of the crew, had Senator Jordan drown instead of being shot. The crews reasoning for the change was to show the drowning of the main characters through the death of the Senator. In addition, the environment was also symbolic; the fog represented the lack of clarity with the characters.