A Film and its Era: Three Days of the Condor (Sydney Pollack)

Sydney Pollack directed Three Days of the Condor in 1974. Portrait of a film: Joseph Turner aka Condor, played by Robert Redford, is an unsuccessful novelist who works for the CIA, reading spy novels in search of ideas or leaks. One day, returning from lunch, he finds all his co-workers murdered. A political thriller set against the backdrop of an oil crisis, Three Days of the Condor narrates the race between a conspiratorial organization operating within the CIA and the agent Condor who tries to escape. Portrait of an Era: The film was released in 1975. The Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon in 1974, the lack of authority of the new President, Gerald Ford, the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the arrival of the Khmer Rouge to power in Cambodia and the installation of a communist regime in Laos clearly mark the decline of America on the world stage. Portrait of a Filmmaker: If S. Pollack is a child of American cinema, who enjoys working within the old genres of his childhood, giving them new vitality, and switching from one genre to another, he is primarily a filmmaker of his era. Film after film he draws the portrait of an American identity crisis. He questions the issues of commitment and personal integrity in a corrupt and violent society, the conflict between the individual and the world surrounding him.