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 ...