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 2072: Keith Teare on Scarlett Johansson's voice and the creative promise/peril of AI
Episode 2071: Jehuda Reinharz on Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel who aspired to be a British aristocrat
Episode 2070: John R. MacArthur warns that reading digital screens might be shrinking our brains
Episode 2069: KEEN ON America featuring Bobi Conn
Episode 2068: Jacob Kushner on the National Socialist Underground's plot to kill German immigrants
Episode 2067: Jordan Elgrably on richly complex stories about the Middle East and North Africa mostly ignored by Western media
Episode 2066: Steven Johnson on the invention of dynamite, anarchist violence and the rise of the 20th century surveillance state
Episode 2065: Craig Whitlock explains how an overweight Malaysian contractor known as Fat Leonard bribed, bilked and seduced the U.S. Navy
Episode 2064: Chris Gavaler explains how How Stars Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Marvel determine how we view reality
Episode 2063: Rabbi Shai Held on why Judaism is really all about Love
Episode 2062: KEEN ON AMERICA featuring Ali Velshi
Episode 2061: Rafil Kroll-Zaidi on Branson, Missouri, the most American town you've never heard of
Episode 2060: Ferdia Lennon on the tragicomedy of the Peloponnesian War