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
How to Innovate: Sheena Iyengar on how, in our Age of Big Problems, we must learn to Think Bigger
On Mental Illness and the Mist of Consciousness: William Brewer explains how Psychedelic Therapy Saved His Life
On Roads Not Taken: Novelist Juliette Fay explains why regret is such fertile territory for fiction writers
Disrupting the Traditional Art World: Evrim Oralkan on how Collecteurs.com is transforming privately owned creative work into "public" digital art
A Tragic Grand Delusion: Steven Simon on the Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East
That Was the Week in Tech: Inspired by his wife, Gene, Keith Teare asks whether the market has hit the bottom
Nine Black Robes: Joan Biskupic on the historic significance of the Supreme Court's drive to the right
An Impossible Choice: Anjan Sundaram on the devastating personal costs of being a war correspondent in Africa
The Painful Joy of Remembering the Lives of Two Holocaust Survivors: Max J. Friedman on why he chose to write a memoir about his Holocaust surviving parents
Why We Should Blame Leaders, not Citizens, for Today's Crisis of Democracy: Larry Bartels on how democracy is eroding from the top
The Start-Up That Defines the entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley: Jimmy Soni on the story of PayPal and its remarkable alumni who have shaped the 21st century
The Teen Mental Health Crisis: Hannah Murphy asks whether teens are paying with their sanity for their "free" social media
Complicate the Narrative: Rajiv Vinnokota on how to transform Americans into better citizens