Why This Might Be Robert Redford's Most Prescient Movie
We all have our own favorite Robert Redford movie. But what's Redford’s most prescient film about today’s America? His Seventies trilogy about American politics — The Candidate, Three Days of the Condor and All the President's Men — are all, in their own profound ways, lasting meditations on the United States. But of the three, it might be Sydney Pollack's Three Days of the Condor (1975) which has the eeriest relevance to contemporary America. For James Grady, whose equally classic 1974 thriller Six Days of the Condor inspired the movie, Three Days of the Condor speaks to both the all-encompassing paranoia and isolation of our age. It's the anti-James Bond film for our anti-James Bond age. "For a movie that was made fifty years ago to unearth the emotions we felt then, and the emotions we're feeling now — that's extraordinary," James Grady says. Yes. After a half century, the Condor has landed.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Episode 2330: Eoin Higgins on how reactionary tech billionaires bought Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi
Episode 2329: Ethan Zuckerman on how the United States learned to love online censorship
Episode 2328: A gay Jewish atheist rides to the rescue of American Christianity
Episode 2327: John Lee Hooker Jr explains who gets to go to Heaven and who doesn't
Episode 2326: Mike Colias assesses the impact of Trump's Tariffs on the US Auto Industry
Episode 2325: Charles Piller on Fraud, Arrogance, and Tragedy in the Quest to Cure Alzheimer's
Episode 2324: Why we need some Sputnik Thinking on Wealth Redistribution in our AI Age
Episode 2223: Sophia Rosenfeld asks if our age of choice might also be an age of tyranny
Episode 2322: Andrew Lipstein on how to reinvent American masculinity
Episode 2321: Michael Ignatieff on why he's still (half) in love with the United States
Episode 2320: Nicholas Carr on how technologies of connection are tearing us apart
Episode 2319: Christopher DiCarlo on AI as the latest chapter in our long history of building an all-knowing God
Episode 2318: Mike Pepi on how to escape from the digital dystopia of platform capitalism