If there is a quote to describe Robert Redford’s impact on cinema, society, and culture, it would be this from Berthold Brecht:
“Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
His passing this week at 89 hit me much harder than I would’ve expected. I feel the same way when I heard of the losses of Senator John McCain and Anthony Bourdain. Redford was an individual whose work, personality, charm, and determination made him so much bigger than just a good looking guy on screen reading lines.
First, the personal and geographic. I live in Park City, Utah — home (for one more year) to the Sundance Film Festival. Every January, thousands of aspiring auteurs and film fans descend on our mountain town, inspired by Redford’s efforts to ensure that not every movie had to be part of the MCU.
If you’ve never been to Sundance, Utah, please do so if you get the chance. We’ve stayed for weekends, for brunches, ski races, and Bluebird Cafe concerts. Redford created a slice of heaven in the shadow of Mt. Timpanogos, just off Highway 189 on the way to Provo.
He was able to demonstrate a love for America through his work, illustrating her beauty in movies like A River Runs Through It and holding her to account in movies like All The President’s Men.
I love baseball, the West, spy movies, and politics and Redford gave me more than I could hope for.
Anyone who grew up like me, hoping to be a big leaguer, (I couldn’t hit to save my life,) still gets choked up as Roy Hobbs hits a homerun into the lights as The Natural. It was a baseball movie, yes, but more importantly a story of love, loss, and redemption. He was also left-handed, as I am, which was cool for a southpaw kid.
If you don’t want to come back in your next life as either Butch Cassidy or the Sundance Kid, stop reading now. Between them, Redford and longtime friend Paul Newman beamed about 10,000 watts of charm and charisma at the audience; turning outlaws into heroes.
I recently rewatched All The President’s Men. Even 50 years later, it holds up as an incredible movie, and the film that in another life inspired me to want to be a journalist (only made it to editor of the high school rag.) Again, Redford’s on-screen chemistry, this time with Dustin Hoffman, was a character in itself. The look they exchange after Redford assures a source he, too, is a Republican, is brilliant.
Soldiers in the Streets? Nobody Cares.
Last weekend I watched All The President’s Men with my 15 year old. The 1970s backdrop fascinated her. Ringing desk phones, typewriters, old cars were all amusing. “Why are they all old white guys,” she asked when seeing the Post’s editorial meeting 1972.
While I won’t flip away from Spy Game if it’s on, Three Days of the Condor is on my list of all-time favorite movies, Robert Redford or otherwise. The cast alone, Redford, Faye Dunaway, John Houseman, Cliff Robertson and an astonishing Max von Sydow is a terrific espionage yarn.
Most of Redford’s movies worked on mutiple levels, and Condor is an exemplar. Under Sidney Pollack’s direction, Condor mixes intrigue, tangled love and relationships, individuals thrust together with no place to go and no way to get there, and of course, good old fashioned powerful forces acting badly.
Condor was prescient about the CIA, what American leaders would do to maintain control, and of course…Oil. In a climactic scene with Robertson’s spy chief, Joe Turner, an agency operative whose job is to ‘just read books,’ is incredulous when he realizes that the government does in fact have plans to invade the Middle East.
Storytelling aside, Condor has a couple of my favorite lines in all of cinema:
In Kathy’s apartment (the young woman Turner kidnapped) he studies her photographs. “They’re lonely,” he says. “Not autumn, not winter…November.”
After three days on the run, as the pair are preparing to go their seperate ways, Dunaway’s Kathy lights a cigarette. Redford’s Turner remarks, “I didn’t know you smoked.”
Without missing a beat Dunaway replies, “I quit three years ago.”
An underated Redford film, The Candidate, will bring us up to date. Bill McKay is running for the United States Senate, and much of his platform is focused on issues we still wrestle with today. After unexpectedly winning his race, McKay asks his campaign manager, “Marvin, what do we do now?”
Any wisdom will do, Mr. Redford. What do we do now?
I so resonate with all you wrote about Redford. Absolute delightful piece. I connect with the west, the skepticism of too powerful DC titans who themselves never went to war, to integrity and his respect for women and animals/nature. He was as impactful on America as was Robin Williams.
Utah not only lost him but Sundance. It was nice to read another piece snd learn he married a Mormon who led him to Utah and they had four kids. Married for decades, eschewing the money centered LA cinema culture.
Married his second wife whom he met at Subdance, 24 years later.
Love to Robert Redford for his talents and skills and values for a good solid American life- thank you Robert for all those great films