Robert Redford: Three Days of the Condor was serious… (Arte)

The director of Out of Africa has described himself as the author of “commercial, Hollywood, mainstream films whose primary mission is to entertain”. He wanted to make you think too. Witness, Three Days of the Condor, 24 hours ago out of breath with twists and turns, “nasty” agents, a ruthless killer (Max von Sydow, grisly), old-fashioned punches and masculine seduction. It all starts with a man driving a Solex through the busy streets of Manhattan. I’m Joseph Turner (Robert Redford), cool, beanie, tweed and wool sweater. He works for the CIA under the code name Condor. No sign of James Bond. His job is to read and decipher detective novels, spy novels, comics (Dick Tracy is a fan) in order to find messages, leaks or secret codes used by other networks. “Who invented such a business? “asks his colleagues in the small literary community who act as screens. The job is casual and pretty fun, until the day he, by incredible luck, escapes the murder of members of his own section. Why? Why ? By whom ? Can he still trust his bosses? Goodbye carelessness. Sydney Pollack’s fluid and brilliant direction follows Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers. Like Cary Grant’s character death after, Turner was the man to beat.

A MIRROR OF AMERICA

Shot in 1974 during the Watergate scandal that resulted in the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon, the film is a mirror of America, at the time in the midst of a crisis of distrust towards America. institutions. . “While we were filming the final scene, in front of the New York Times building, we just read the CIA disclosures in the paper, Sydney Pollack will tell us. The dismissed head of counterintelligence, James Angleton, was the same type of character as Atwood (one of the Agency officials in the movie, editor’s note). Fiction joined reality.“Robert Redford offers a restrained, almost minimalist interpretation of Joseph Turner, who is taking action despite himself, determined to recover his skin and discover the truth. He will receive divine assistance from Kathy Hale, a lonely photographer portrayed by a troubled Faye in Dunaway. “Condor was serious, he was really taking risks,” Redford would explain years later. We were consciously taking a stand and questioning our government: Would it house an organization that was out of control? It was a criticism of the CIA before any information came out about Iran etc. ” Fun, stimulating, driven by themes that are still current (e.g. in 2021, the high case of spying on European dignitaries by the NSA or the Internet giants taking over our personal data), Three Days of the Flatr and the whistleblower hero hasn’t aged a bit.

Three Days of the Condor: Sunday, December 4 at 20:55 at Arte

ISABEL MAGNIER