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
Why Does Everything Need To Be About Race? Keith Boykin on Claudine Gay, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott and why the real function of racism is distraction
Suburbia and American Disillusionment: Benjamin Herold on the unravelling of both America's suburbs and the American dream
The War for Israel's Soul: Bernard Avishai on the age old battle in Israel between globalists and messianic Zionists
A Winston Churchill for our TikTok age? Simon Shuster on Volodymyr Zelensky, the workaholic improv politician who needs to be loved by his Ukrainian people
A venture capitalist imagines a world after capital: Albert Wenger on work, leisure and the environment in the AI age
In Trouble With Gender: Alex Byrne explores slippery sex facts and factual gender fictions
Can AI produce genuine culture? Martin Puchner on the future of artistic creativity in the age of the smart machine
Radically reinventing America in upstate New York: Susan Danzinger on how to effectively put philosophy into action
Why Generative AI represents an existential threat to the creative community: Ed Newton-Rex warns about the dire consequences of generative AI companies "scraping" data without acknowledging its creators
The Cult of the Algorithm: Hilary Mason peers behind the hidden door of AI, gaming and storytelling
What killed capitalism? Yanis Varoufakis' murder mystery about the death of capitalism and our descent into "techno feudalism"
Yes, there is an alternative to free market capitalism (and, no, it's not socialism): Nick Romeo on how to build a just economy
Don't Trust Us: Frank Vogl exposes the marketing scammers behind the increasingly mainstream success of cryptocurrency