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
Mount Rushmore: America's Most Monumental Contradiction
George Packer's Emergency: When Facts Fail, Turn to Fiction
How 9/11 Broke the News, Both Then and Now: CNN's Finest Hour Was Also Its Last
An Anglo-American Way of Troublemaking: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford
How Capitalism Can Save Capitalism: The Case for Stakeholder Capitalism
2% of Americans are Homeless: America's Most Shameful Open Secret
A Code RED For Humanity: Forget 80/20 - the 95/5 Rule of our AI Age
Why "Progress" is Ruling Class Propaganda: The Dangerous Idea that Built Civilization and is Now Destroying it
Two VCs, No Filter: The Naked Truth about Elon Musk and Sam Altman
From Mongolia to Silicon Valley: A Venture Capitalist's American Dream
The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism
A Tale of Two Kellys: Peter Wehner on the Intellectual and Moral Decline of the American Right
Guantanamo: The Myth vs the Reality