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
The Purple Presidency 2024: C. Owen Paepke on how voters can reclaim the White House for "bipartisan" governance
Things You Wanted to Say But Never Did: Geloy Concepcion on his confessional photographic journal on Instagram
The Datapreneurs: Bob Muglia on why we should trust the promise of AI and its creators to build a better human future
Against Nostalgia: Mark Lilla on why progressives should reject nostalgia in thinking about both the past and future
In this regular weekly show with THAT WAS THE WEEK newsletter author Keith Teare, Andrew and Keith discuss why Keith was wrong in last week's show about Apple's new Vision Pro and how this revolutionary device might once again change everything
A Radical Amerikan Family: Santi Elijah Holley on the Shakurs - from the Black Panthers to Tupac
The Good Enough Job: Simone Stolzoff on how to reclaim our life from work
The Three Ages of Water: Peter Gleick on the prehistoric past, imperiled present and hopeful future of water
My Hijacking: Martha Hodes on her memoir of forgetting
Imagine a City: Mark Vanhoenacker writes a love letter from the sky to the world's greatest cities
As Rich as a Digital Croesus: Trevor Traina imagines a super app in which we can store all our Web3 data
In Defense of Big Girls: Mecca Jamilah Sullivan asks whether the American Republic was founded on anti-fat people principles
The Overlooked Americans: Elizabeth Currid-Halkett on the resilience of rural America and it means for the future of the country