Albert Huber
3 Days of the Condor
IR180, Der Derian and Santos

Conspiracies fascinate the American public. Ever since World War II, we realized that openly combating our enemies would lead to certain destruction. Conspiracies thus became the topic of films dealing with an “enemy,” though sometimes an enemy right here at home. Three Days of the Condor deals with the issue of conspiracy, and trying to find the “man behind the curtain.” Pollack plays with this plot trope while making sure at the end we still believe the world is safe and in control.

First of all, he plays with then subverts our idea of the “other.” We are pretty sure going into the movie that it is going to be based around “conspiracy,” not state to state warfare. This is made clear from the beginning when Turner says that when talking to a superior about strange patterns he had found in the translations of a certain book, “He said it’s not my department.” Watching this film from a modern perspective, this is an immediate tip that the conspiracy is going to be home based.

This assumption is immediately put under attack when we hear the killer, the first person we see who is definitely involved in the conspiracy, speak. He has a French accent, while his unit doesn’t seem to speak at all. This gives us a very strong sense of the unidentifiable “others.” Those who are not American and have somehow been plotting against us from the outside.

We know, of course, that by the end of the movie, this man in the glasses is not the man behind the curtain, but it is in fact someone within the CIA itself. What does it mean that the CIA hired out foreign contractors to conduct business within the U.S.? We are dealing with issues of trying to find out who the enemy is, a constant in Cold War media.

Now let us turn to this ubiquitous “man behind the curtain.” Is it someone in the CIA? Is it a person from an enemy government working against the U.S.? Our first hint that one exists is in the first two minutes of the movie, where we see a list with John Turner’s name on it, and it is slowly crossed off. Every other name on the list, side one, has already been crossed off. There is something brewing, and there is someone behind it.

Through the course of the movie, there are different people who seem to be on Turner’s side and against Turner, and it is not until Turner uses his knowledge of a phone system (because he was in the Army and worked in communications) that we finally think we have found the man behind whatever conspiracy is being covered up, Atwood. This gives us an enemy, somebody to find and somebody to stop. There is somebody in control, and we can fix our problems if we just stop that person.

The confrontation with Atwood comes around in a classic movie format. Turner has a gun to him, and Atwood begins to confess, and we hear that it’s about oil. Our cadence of full confession, then vindication, is cut short when the original assassin returns and kills Atwood. What does this say about our man behind the curtain when Atwood, who we thought was the head of the conspiracy, is so easily disposed of? Is there are larger conspiracy above him? Was he really just killed because he was shameful to the department? If Atwood wasn’t running the show, then who is?

That last question is what is addressed so eloquently in this film. Terrorist networks don’t really have an executive at the top who is running the whole group. There is nobody who we could capture or kill to stop the network overall. Networks like these, and many other “conspiracy” networks are just a group of people, usually loosely organized, attempting to do the best for themselves. While we believed that the conspiracy was a conspiracy all the way to the top, we realize that Atwood was at the end. There was no government conspiracy, there were people trying to make money and it went south when Turner stumbled upon them. There are no more sides any more, no loyalty to certain governments, as Joubert (the original assassin) says to Turner, “No need to believe in either side or any side…the belief is in your own precision.”

The problem with espousing this message, though, is that people begin to panic when they believe that there is no man behind the curtain. Even though we find it sinister, we also find it comforting that somebody we don’t see or know about is always watching us. When we have many people only relying on their own skills and wants, we just have some form of organized anarchy. We also realize there is no single authoritative say in what is happening, every group defines their own version of the truth, and there is no authority to say what is wrong and what is right. This can be frightening to people and therefore turn them off this particular film.

Pollack combats this fear in two different clever ways. First of all, the ending conversation between Turner and Higgins seems to imply that the CIA might just have had more to do with Atwood’s renegade project than previously thought. As Turner says, “Who the hell is Atwood? He’s you, he’s all you guys.” Our fears are further assuaged through Higgins explanation of why the CIA may have let Atwood go ahead with his plan. The CIA could see some benefit for the country in what he was doing, and therefore let him proceed.

It is in the very last shot of the film, though, where we don’t have to worry about the world being thrown into some sort of every man for himself anarchy, and we are assured there is still some higher power watching over us. This is when Turner looks back from behind a group of Christmas Carolers, the shot freezes, and then it turns black and white under the credits. This shot looks exactly like a surveillance photo that someone could have taken from a car Turner would not have seen.

Turner is still under surveillance and that makes us, or at least me, feel safe. No matter how much we like and romanticize the story of one man who can take on a whole organization like the CIA, it is incredibly frightening. What if that one person does not have good intentions, like Turner? What we needed at the end of Three Days of the Condor, and what was delivered, was a way for our hero to be victorious, but for us still to know that there is a watchful eye out there making sure the country still runs safely, no matter what happens.