Conspiracy Theories in film Visual & Performing Arts Research Paper (Research Paper Sample)

Conspiracy Theories in Film
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Conspiracy Theories in film
The Manchurian candidate is a classic 1962 production centered on brain-washing, issues of international communism, assassinations, conspiracies and political intrigues. A Korean War hero, Laurence Harvey is brainwashed to operate as a Soviet mole to assassinate a Presidential candidate. The film is set in the early 50s when the right –wing McCarthyism was at it its height. During the time, there was intense paranoia and fears in the political spheres that Communists were planning to take over the USA by applying brainwashing techniques together with programmed terrorist trainings (Frankenheimer, et al., 1962). While the movie failed at the box office, it set the mood for the obsession of America with conspiracy theories. Indeed, in some blocks, the film was banned for its strong anti-Communistic connotations until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1993.
What makes this movie’s themes to be as close to the truth and therefore, its importance to the national discourse is its withdraw from the theatres a year after the death of President Kennedy. A suspected brainwashed killer allegedly assassinated JKF. However, it cannot be established whether the film motivated Lee Harvey Oswald. Nonetheless, since those events, the movies has been followed by huge fans in