Skip to main content

Classic Movie Monday: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" & "Three Days of the Condor"


Great films often borrow elements from other great films. Captain America: The Winter Soldier borrowed from Three Days of the Condor and in doing so, it revolutionized the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For the first time ever, they proved that the movies in the MCU could tackle different genres. For this film, they went in the direction of 1970s political thrillers. The Winter Soldier sees Steve Rogers as a fugitive running from the very people he thought were the good guys, people he served under because he thought they were doing the right thing. As he is being hunted down, Captain America must uncover the truth behind those who are after him.  Leading the charge against Cap is none other than Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce.
The fact that it is Redford who is in the role of Alexander Pierce is important because in 1975, Redford starred in the film Three Days of the Condor. This film sees Redford as Joe Turner, a CIA code breaker who walks into his office to find the entire staff dead. After escaping the scene to report back to his supervisors, he discovers that the murders were set up by the same people he works for. Fearing that Joe now knows too much, the head of the CIA arranges for contract killer, Joubert, to get rid of him. Now on the run, Joe must survive long enough to discover why the CIA wants him dead.
If that sounds familiar it is because directors Joe and Anthony Russo saw Three Days of the Condor as inspiration for The Winter Soldier. There are a lot of similarities between both films that go beyond their premises. For one, both films are riddled with an overbearing sense that you can’t trust anyone. 1970s political thrillers are very reliant in paranoia. Because of this, our protagonists are mostly isolated and have a very limited amount of people that can actually help them. With both heroes having to constantly be looking over their shoulder, the tension is palpable.
There are scenes in The Winter Soldier seem to come straight out of Condor. The Winter Soldier has a very intense elevator fight scene that marks the beginning of the hunt for Steve Rogers. It’s a moment that is built up to as Steve begins to notice how nervous everyone in the elevator appears to be. In Three Days of the Condor we see something similar when Joe has his first encounter with Joubert. It’s a perfectly executed scene that uses the audience's knowledge to its advantage. At this point, we have already been introduced to Joubert and know why he’s there but we know that Joe has no idea who he is. Because we know who Joubert is, we are constantly expecting something to happen but this moment is perfectly drawn out so that the tension rises with every passing second.
I love how similar these scenes are to each other while also being completely different. In Condor, we are aware of what is about to happen which is why the tension is so high. In The Winter Soldier, though, we are completely blindsided which makes the tension shoot from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds. I appreciate that while The Winter Soldier borrows a key moment from Three Days of the Condor, it still manages to make it feel completely fresh and original.
There is something special about seeing these films back to back and witnessing Robert Redford play two characters on the opposite end of the spectrum on films that are so similar to each other. To see someone who made a career out of being a hero be a villain is extremely fun and shows versatility as well as desire to keep reinventing himself as an actor.
Since its release, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been lauded as one of the best superhero films ever made. It reminded audiences that superhero films could be seen as much more than simply “comic book movies”. Borrowing from one of the seminal 1970s political thrillers, Three Days of the Condor, helped make this drastic change a possibility. Any fan of The Winter Soldier should consider watching Three Days of the Condor if only to see where a lot of the ideas and inspirations for it came.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Review: "Ready Player One"

There aren’t very many directors who have had quite the career that Steven Spielberg has. The man who directed the very first blockbuster in  Jaws , is the same man who has put together some of our most beloved films such as the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Jurassic Park , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and the Indiana Jones series. It’s the same man that, aside from giving us these wonderfully imaginative films, has also given us hard-hitting dramas such as Schindler’s List , Lincoln and Bridge of Spies . His career has spanned 50 years, and the 71-year-old director shows no signs of slowing down. With his latest film, Ready Player One , Spielberg once again delivers an awe-inspiring film that captures the wonders of the imagination. It stars Tye Sheridan as Wade Watts/Parzival, Olivia Cooke as Samantha Cook/Art3mis, Ben Mendelsohn as the villainous Sorrento and Mark Rylance as OASIS creator James Halliday. The film takes place in 2045 Columbus, Ohio. In this futuristi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Classic Movie Monday (Christmas Edition): Home Alone

For most kids growing up in the 90s, Home Alone was THE Christmas movie to watch. This is the story of Kevin, an 8-year old kid who gets forgotten at home when the entire family leaves to Paris for the holidays. As a result, he has to fend for himself while also protecting his home from intruders. Macaulay Culkin as Kevin was a representation of what most kids wanted to be, which was totally independent and the smartest guy in the room.              There are certain films that you can watch and no matter how much time has passed, it still feels like a story you could tell today in the exact same way as it was told back then. This is not one of those films. Home Alone very clearly a product of its time. It’s like digging up a time capsule from the 90s and seeing what the world, or just movies in general, were like. The entire premise and the way it all unfolds would probably never work in today’s world. I mean it barely work...
Post a Comment
Read more

Classic Movie Monday: "Rear Window" vs "Disturbia"

There are certain classics that, in theory, should be much harder to re-imagine than others. Often times, it’s very difficult to modernize certain aspects of a story, whether it be the topic or story plot. By all accounts, Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery thriller Rear Window should have been difficult to adapt in 2007. Rear Window ’s plot makes the film date itself more than other Hitchcock films. At the center of the 1954 film, which stars James Stewart, is L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries, a photographer whose broken-leg forces him to be wheelchair-bound and unable to leave his house. Having nothing else to do, Jeff passes the time by spying on the people from the apartment complex across from his. When he sees what he believes to be a murder at the hands of a man named Thorwald, Jeff takes it upon himself to solve the crime. Rear Window remains one of Hitchcock’s most decorated films, so it is no surprise that eventually someone would try and remake it. The question, however, is how? The idea...
Post a Comment
Read more