"There's a moment in the 1975 Sydney Pollack thriller Three Days of the Condor that captures what made Robert Redford one of the great movie stars. Redford's Joe Turner is a bookish CIA analyst who leaves the office for lunch one day and returns to find that all of his colleagues have been murdered. He then goes on the run, forcing a photographer, Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway), to let him use her basement apartment as a safe house."
"Kathy is in the shower when the doorbell rings. Joe's in the kitchen. He and the postman make eye contact through Kathy's front window. Joe says Kathy's not home and to leave the package on the stoop. When the carrier tells him, "Well, you can sign," Joe lowers his guard and steps outside. When the man's cheap pen doesn't work, Joe goes back inside to find another."
Robert Redford delivered a terse, expressive performance as Joe Turner in Three Days of the Condor, conveying rapid cognitive shifts through minimal physical motion and close-up focus. A simple glance at a mail carrier's shoes triggers the character's recognition of danger, prompting immediate violent action that unfolds in seconds. The scene demonstrates Redford's ability to make complex thought processes legible on screen. Redford also founded the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival to champion independent filmmaking and to help emerging filmmakers avoid industry setbacks. He died at 89 at his home in Provo, Utah.
Read at Vulture
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