The Joubert Code Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Joubert, the French Alsatian assassin played by Max von Sydow, is the most morally articulate character in Three Days of the Condor (1975). He is also a hired killer who murders eight people on screen. The film's strangest formal achievement is that he is presented neither as a monster nor as an antihero. He is presented as a professional with a code, and the code is described carefully enough that the audience leaves the theater able to repeat it.

The code has rules

Joubert states the code in three lines spread across three scenes. Each line specifies what he cares about and, by elimination, what he does not.

"I'm not interested in 'why.' More in 'when.' Sometimes 'where.' Always 'how much.'" — Max von Sydow as Joubert, Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The first line specifies the boundary of his contractual interest. He is not paid to evaluate the morality of the killing. He is paid to perform it on schedule, in the right place, for the right fee. The negation of "why" is not nihilism. It is professional discipline.

"There is no cause. There's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision." — Max von Sydow as Joubert, Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The second line specifies the source of meaning in his work. Joubert's belief is in craft. He kills cleanly. He does not waste. He honors the contract. He is, by the standards of his trade, a virtuous practitioner.

"I find no comfort in my friends. I find no comfort in my work. I find comfort in the work itself." — Max von Sydow as Joubert (paraphrased composite, Three Days of the Condor 1975)

The third element is implicit rather than spoken: Joubert recognizes the personhood of his targets. When Atwood dismisses Sam Barber as "nobody," Joubert corrects him: "He was somebody for Condor." The line is the moral hinge of the film. Joubert kills for hire and refuses to deny that the people he kills are people.

The code has consequences

The Joubert code dictates the action of the film as much as Turner's analytic method does.

• Joubert kills Atwood. When the original contract ends and the new contract — kill the man who hired you — appears, Joubert performs it without complaint. The institution's logic and Joubert's logic align: the rogue operator is a liability and must be cleaned. Joubert cleans him.
• Joubert spares Turner. The contract on Turner is canceled. Joubert performs the cancellation as fastidiously as he performed the original contracts. He does not freelance. He does not hold a grudge. He does not finish the job for personal satisfaction.
• Joubert offers Turner a future. In the film's most discussed scene, Joubert pulls his car alongside Turner outside Atwood's house and proposes that Turner come work in Europe. The offer is professional in tone. It is a job offer for someone who has demonstrated the relevant skills.

"It will happen this way. You may be walking. Maybe the first sunny day of the spring. And a car will slow beside you, and a door will open, and someone you know, maybe even trust, will get out of the car. And he will smile, a becoming smile. But he will leave open the door of the car and offer to give you a lift." — Max von Sydow as Joubert, Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The line is a warning, a job offer, and an existential proposition. It tells Turner that the institution will not stop hunting him. It also tells him that there is a way to live in the world the institution has made — Joubert's way. Joubert is, in a sense, recruiting.

Turner refuses

Turner declines the offer with the film's most homesick line:

"I was born in the United States, Joubert. I miss it when I'm away too long." — Robert Redford as Joe Turner, Three Days of the Condor (1975)

The refusal is not on moral grounds — Turner does not denounce Joubert — but on grounds of attachment. Turner has a country and Joubert does not. Joubert's code is portable, professional, complete. Turner's identity is not. The distance between the two men, the film's structure suggests, is the distance between operating outside institutions by choice and operating outside them by necessity.

Pollack preferred Joubert to most heroes

"The von Sydow character is an honest bad guy, which I prefer any day to a lying good guy." — Sydney Pollack, Cinephilia & Beyond

The preference is the film's underlying ethic. Joubert is honest about who he is and what he does. Higgins is not. Atwood is not. The CIA leadership is not. Joubert kills cleanly and admits to it. The institution kills cleanly and lies about it. Within the moral universe of the film, the assassin's code is the only fully transparent ethical position on display.