How many of you have seen The Manchurian Candidate, whether the 1976 version or the 2004 version? If you have watched either of those two, what did you think of the movie? Between the two (if you've seen them both) which did you like more?

I watched the 2004 version, starring Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Liev Schreiber. I really enjoyed the movie and the poignant characters, especially Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber). Schreiber's portrayal of Shaw was exceptional, bordering the conflicted and withdrawn soul that Shaw so desperately was. Meryl Streep and Denzel Washington, of course, were exceptional, too. Meryl Streep's character, Raymond's mother, made an impression on me as well, merely because there was so much...hidden behind Mrs. Shaw's mask, and we got to see glimpses of it. Even then, I don't think I truly understood her mentality completely, and that creates an even more mysterious aura around her personality.

Now, after watching the movie, I went and borrowed the book from my public library and spent two days reading it. (The book is titled exactly the same, and it is by Richard Condon.) I was startled to see how much of the book was left out of the movie, and for obvious reasons.

First off, the book centered around Raymond Shaw, who was a Medal of Honor winner, an ex-prisoner of war, an American hero, and a brainwashed assassin. The movie centered more around Major Ben Marco (Denzel Washington) - probably because it was Washington who was recruited for the part. However, another reason I believe the focused around Washington's character was that the character of Raymond Shaw was a good portion different than the character Schreiber portrayed on screen. In the movie, they focused on Shaw's political life, when, in fact, he had none at all (in the book). Shaw's mother was married to Johnny Iselin, who was running for Governor. It wasn't Shaw who was running for Vice President. In the novel, Shaw did everything he could to avoid political involvement.

The 'activation' of the brainwashing/mind control differed between the novel and the screenplay. In the 2004 movie, 'they' activated Shaw by saying, "Sergeant Shaw? Sergeant Raymond Shaw? Raymond Prentiss Shaw?" The same went for Marco. In the novel, however, Shaw - the only one who was actually trained to be an assassin and used - was activated with the phrase, "Why don't you pass the time with a game of solitaire." Shaw would then have to locate a deck of cards and play solitaire until the Queen of Diamonds showed up, and then he would wait for his instructions. I could only assume that they did not incorporate this into the movie because it would have taken too long. Having read the novel a few months ago, I think that Marco was not actually activated, since 'they' specifically brainwashed Shaw to become an assassin due to the fact that his mother and step-father were high in politics.

Raymond's mother. She is another complicated character, of which an actor would have very little success portraying on-screen (in my opinion). She is the reason that her son turned out to be so distant and so emotionally unattached to certain things. Raymond's mother was actually the result of incest. Her father would make love to her when she was ten or so - and she enjoyed it. The moment her father died of a sudden heart attack, she was left with a truckload of grief - and anger. She resented her mother and her brother, and, at the age of sixteen, passed herself off as an older woman and slept around the political cabinet to gain power. She married her husband, (surname Shaw), who was an older man, merely because of his political connections and power. He gave her Raymond, whom she did everything she could to keep as safe as possible. When her husband died, she married Jonny Iselin - again for power. However, all of this would be difficult to portray on-screen, especially since the screen-writer(s) and director(s) wanted to focus on Shaw's public/political life. The whole incest idea could not be portrayed either, since the movie was based more on Ben Marco than the Prentiss-Shaw family and may not have been deemed relevant to the plot.

As for Ben Marco, he played an important part to the novel - as well as the movie, of course - but he was more of a low-key character, considering that Raymond Shaw was the more poignant one. Marco was important in the fact that it was he who discovered that they had been brainwashed, and he tried everything he could to keep Shaw from being 'activated' again. In the end, after Raymond had shot his mother and Johnny Iselin, her husband, Marco went in to give Shaw his last instructions. As Marco left the room, there was one more solitary shot, and Marco stated as he walked, "No electric chair for a Medal of Honor man."

Overall, despite the fact that the majority of what went on in the movie contradicted to what occured in the novel, the movie was very good. It's not an easy movie to digest, but, if persistant and attentive, you can understand more than what is presented on the screen. I give the movie a B+.