In memoriam: Robert Redford

Credit: Mary Evans/Ronald Grant/Everett; Everett; Buena Vista/Everett. Source: ew.com

I don’t usually write obits. The last one I did was on another platform for David Bowie because, well, David Bowie.

It mingle be difficult for more recent generations to get, but Redford was very much part of the zeitgeist when I was coming up. He wasn’t just a heartthrob matinee idol; he was as much a player in the New Hollywood as, say, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, and his peers more resolutely known for exploring the harsher dimensions of life in the seventies.

By contrast, while Redford was very much a “movie star”, he was an accomplished actor and much of his work centered on the more slippery nature of relationships, bruised loves, and eventually, exploring the ramifications of political decisions in the U.S. I doubt if he’d want to hear his work framed that way, but that’s how his evolution struck me as a kid. And it’s stayed with me since.

In some ways, he was almost borderline square until you realized what he was doing in any given role and you found yourself gobsmacked by just how frikkin’ subtle his work was. He was rarely given to melodramatic flourishes (I’m hard-pressed to think of one) but he could convey longing and loss in equal measure that would prove moving in the extreme. 

He was, of course, gorgeous. Almost as much as his buddy Paul Newman. Watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting only served to remind a young male that it’s best to simply admire and not compare yourself. Otherwise, you’d wind up punching a mirror for genetic failure. And like just about every aesthetically beautiful human with more than a modicum of talent, I think those looks might have worked against him until, of course, they didn’t. 

I’d seen Butch and Sundance on TV. I found it amusing, but kind of lightweight (I really don’t know what I was expecting), but I saw Redford for the first time on the big screen in The Candidate. My pal Colin Tuttle and I saw it together at the Windsor Theater in Houston and hardened political beasts that we were at fourteen or fifteen, we came away with an enlarged understanding of how nuts and scarily superficial the American political machine could be. 

I’m not exaggerating; by 1972, both of us had found our ways into looking at politics because I think we both sensed that the decisions adults made could have really profound effects on our lives. That there was this movie that acted like a Rosetta Stone of what happens behind the scenes was right in front of us, only served to ingrain a greater wariness about the world we might be entering once we were older. Also, it was funny.

Satire was big with us; Firesign Theater, the National Lampoon Radio Hour, and George Carlin, all factored into shaping twisted senses of humor and enlarging teen perspectives. Redford became immediately hip in our eyes.

Then came The Sting. This was a game changer. Yes, it’s about as far removed from The Last Detail or Five Easy Pieces as you can get; it’s very much an old school entertainment, but there was a definite sense of sticking it to The Man that pervaded the flick, and Christ, it was funny. 

As a kid, you respond to actors on a case by case basis. I hadn’t seen Downhill Racer or Jeremiah Johnson or The Way We Were (I’d catch those later and the last one is one of the few major black marks on Redford’s filmography). To me, Redford was a terrific comic actor and that was the extent of it. 

Then came The Great Gatsby. Like many kids in high school, I read it as part of English class. Unlike many kids in high school, I actually enjoyed it. Through films of the era, I had a good idea in my mind of what the characters looked like and how they sounded; Jay Gatsby, in my mind, didn’t look like Robert Redford. 

As I recall, the film took a drubbing for not capturing the spirit of the novel. I didn’t dislike the film. I didn’t love it, either. It exists as one of those conundrums about how anyone could get it so wrong. It’s a gorgeous film, but Coppola’s screenplay whiffed the eloquent spareness of Fitzgerald’s observations. Gatsby himself is hardly the danger-around-the-edges cypher he is in the book, but I can’t deny there isn’t a degree entertainment to be found in the film. I saw it when it came out and caught it a couple of times in rerelease and came away struck by how contemporary everyone looked; efforts were made to make it look like the Jazz Age, but I was never in the period. Redford, Dern, Karen Black, hell, everyone looked right at home. In 1974.

What did come through was that despite not being my idea of Jay Gatsby, Redford was game; he did his best and provided a what could have been - under more vigorous direction - a “charming rake” (which would have proved more disastrous, but maybe more interesting,  as well.) 

The point is that through all of this, Redford came through as a consummate pro and if not as volatile as some of his peers, he showed increasing depth as an actor as his career unfolded. Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far, and Electric Horseman gave him plenty more range as he entered his forties and he aged into that “elder statesman” phase of his career.

It was only logical that he’d turn to directing and proved he was perfectly capable behind the camera, lensing three outstanding movies and a number of other solid outings. Like a lot of people, I have a beef with Ordinary People (1980) in taking the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards over Raging Bull and Scorsese. If saying this sounds as though I dislike the film itself, nothing could be further from the truth; the fact is that both film explore very real emotional journeys and each film has something to say about the broader social fabric, but only one added to cinematic grammar and held up a much more complex mirror to America. Jake Lamotta is us; Raging Bull is a masterwork and Ordinary People is masterful, but not in the same league.

But I’m not crapping on Redford’s directorial debut; I’m crapping on AMPAS, because the Academy so frequently deserves it. No, Ordinary People is gut-wrenching and gave Mary Tyler Moore a plum role that showed a side to her that we never would have suspected. Donald Sutherland turned in another remarkable performance and frankly, it is an extraordinary debut for a director.

As a director, Redford gave us two back to back classics; 1992’s A River Runs Through It and 1994’s Quiz Show. The former is a remarkable ensemble piece and gave Brad Pitt a chance to stretch, as well. Tom Skerritt anchors the movie for me (a hard actor to not pay attention to) but it’s a moving piece on the ties that bind fathers and sons and brothers. 

Quiz Show, though. Damn. I mean, damn! Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro rivet the attention, but it’s an embarrassment of strong ensemble supporting cast riches that breathe additional texture and life into one of the best films of the 90s. Along with Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption, it was my pick for Best Picture and what won? Why that ode to stupidity:  Forrest Gump. That I revile Gump has been noted elsewhere but I feel worse about Redford’s work losing here than I do about Raging Bull losing to Ordinary People. Again, it’s not a reflection on the films or the filmmakers; it’s the academy. Stupidity is rewarded, after all. 

If his acting receded in the 80s somewhat, The Natural and Out of Africa reminded us of how formidable Redford remained and in subsequent years, he’d pop up and show the kids how it’s done. He certainly drew in a late career fanbase with his work in the MCU as the nefarious Senator Alexander Pierce. Who knew Redford could be smarmy?

But Redford’s influence goes beyond the films he produced, acted in, or directed. He was a champion of independent cinema and in establishing the Sundance Institute (and film festival), provided a platform for aspiring filmmakers and works that otherwise would have gone unseen. From Sundance down through Telluride to almost every film festival in the country, Redford’s inspiration casts a long, benevolent shadow.

He was and environmentalist, an activist for social causes, but eschewed ascribing to any ideology. He commented about how you had to know your stuff if you were going to weigh on issues otherwise be ready for the retort: “you’re just an actor, what do you know?” 

I’m going to miss him. At 89, he’s certainly earned a break, but it was a comfort to know he was around.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the man and his work, what your favorite performance was, what your earliest memory was. We don’t have many of his generation left and given their influence on our cinematic landscape, we will miss them more and more as time goes by.