Three Days of the Condor
Sydney Pollack, USA, 1975o
The members of a literary association, which in reality analyzes foreign-language books for coded messages for the CIA, are murdered - except for Turner, who was on his lunch break. He goes into hiding in the apartment of a random passer-by, whom he turns into a forced ally. At the same time, he discovers that the murderers are from his own ranks and are still hot on his trail.
Three Days of the Condor is one of those political thrillers from the 1970s for which the misleading term paranoia thriller has become commonplace. "Misleading" because the concern about the illegal machinations of politicians and secret services was by no means paranoid, but more than justified, after all presidents since 1960 had lied to the American people about the course of the Vietnam War and CIA practices such as wiretapping, burglaries and subversions had been exposed at the drop of a hat. Sydney Pollack's adaptation of James Grady's novel remains one of the most beautiful films from that time of disillusionment, because it does not just rely on the exciting but never fully comprehensible maneuvers of the dark forces and the imaginative resistance of their liberal counterparts in the heroic role. Rather, Pollack and his cameraman paint atmospheric pictures of quiet forlornness to the jazzy, symphonic sound of Dave Grusin, when Robert Redford as a likeable bookworm and lower CIA batch gets to the bottom of the internal conspiracy to which all his New York office colleagues have fallen victim. Half rebellious, half fatalistic, Faye Dunaway also resigns herself to her fate when Redford uses her apartment as a refuge and forces the stranger into an emergency community. As expected, more becomes of the two - such concentrated beauty simply has to find each other - and then less than hoped for, resulting in a wonderfully clear-sighted farewell scene at Hoboken station at night. The finale that follows is a dazzling display of surprising but plausible twists, in which Max von Sydow also makes a grand entrance as a polite hitman. Who can you trust when you can't trust anyone? That is the question to which this movie provides unexpected answers.
Andreas FurlerThree Days of the Condor ist ein gut gemachter Thriller, spannend und mitreissend, und das Beängstigende in diesen Monaten nach Watergate ist, dass er nur allzu glaubwürdig ist. Verschwörungen samt Mord durch Bundesbehörden fand man früher in obskuren Pamphleten der extremen Linken. Heute erscheinen sie als Hochglanz-Unterhaltung mit Robert Redford und Faye Dunaway in den Hauptrollen. Wie schnell wir uns an die deprimierendsten Möglichkeiten unserer Regierung gewöhnen – und wie schnell wir sie auch kommerzialisieren. Früher spielten Hollywoodstars Cowboys und Generäle. Heute verkörpern sie Abhörspezialisten und Attentäter oder Zielpersonen. Redford spielt hier eine Zielperson, und er gibt eine gute Zielperson ab, ganz offen und vertrauensselig.
Roger EbertA partir d'un roman policier de James Grady, la production de ce film fit écrire, pour Sydney Pollack, un scénario à caractère politique. C'était après l'affaire du Watergate, et avant Les Hommes du président, d'Alan J. Pakula. Dans un style de thriller à la Hitchcock où s'insère une histoire d'amour menacé, le cinéaste décrit, avec une certaine amertume, la toute-puissance des organisations secrètes, les affrontements d'un monde livré à la violence, la suspicion et la paranoïa qui rongent la société américaine.
Jacques Siclier