Robert Redford (1936-2025)

[tolbs1010]

Quiz Show is easily the best film he made

Agree completely. One of my all-time favorites. Much of the credit must go to Paul Attanasio's amazing script and of course the brilliant actors. Redford's direction isn't visually inventive (even with Michael Ballhaus as DP), but he captures the actors, particularly reaction shots, beautifully. It was overshadowed by all of the other Best Picture nominees that year, but I maintain it holds up best of all of them, including Pulp Fiction. It takes a small historical footnote and manages to illuminate timeless themes in an entertaining, intelligent way without hitting the audience over the head with 'meaning'. Hoping Criterion releases it eventually. I'd take a decent release from any label at this point.

As an actor, Redford always seemed a little uncomfortable/uneasy with his own good looks (Paul Newman shared this trait) and usually resisted playing to that obvious strength, even when the role called for it. It created some uniquely effective performances in roles that would be much more ingratiating in the hands of a different actor. I love the way he leans into the arrogant pricklyness of the character in Downhill Racer. Same with The Way We Were. His performance has a slight edge that almost prevents it from being a complete schmaltz-fest. I like him a lot as Gatsby in Jack Clayton's very underrated film of that novel. His natural reserve and slight unease about his own status mirrors the character. His performance in All Is Lost is so still and non-effusive that it enhances the vaguely spiritual notions that Chandor seems to have for the film.

Having said all of that, I'll probably watch Legal Eagles in tribute. It's good to remember that even legends stooped to making dumb trash once in a while, and that is OK by me. RIP RR.

[hearthesilence]

Also, Robert Redford was at La Cinémathèque française back in February 2019 to discuss All the President's Men, which was recorded, and you can view it here.

You actually get a glimpse here of why charismatic (and bright) leading men like Redford or Beatty make great producers - whatever they use to put across a point or grab hold of a viewer on screen immediately goes to work in face-to-face negotiations, and that happens when the Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham tried to stop them from making All the President's Men. Redford "quotes" only one line he said to Graham, but it's so direct and confident, it carries all the gravitas he ever had as a lead actor - "this story is a matter of public record so whether you like it or not, WE'RE MAKING THE FILM." There's no panic, no hysterics, no anger or anything betraying a shred of anxiety of whether or not the film will happen. It's also pretty amusing how he differentiates Spielberg's Washington Post film with the depiction of Graham they had to cut out (as a courtesy to Graham) - "I love Mery Streep...but that wasn't our interpretation."

I think it's a fine film, and it is interesting to hear what went into it. I know for a fact that it's THE film that inspired most reporters I've talked to over the years, and it's not even close. But while it has considerable merit, I've always preferred other films about journalism that were bolder and had more to say. There's a little too much about All the President's Men that feels too much like Hollywood fantasy, a reaction that Bob Woodward echoed every time I saw him speak (inevitably this film would always come up), but in fairness, it's probably why it's so popular with aspiring journalists - it takes that kind of fantasy to make someone dream about a profession that turns everyone into a cynic. (Or as one former journalist told me after he quit his gig covering Capitol Hill, "Man, I thought I was cynical about politics before..."

(Anyway, someone - Criterion, the BFI, whoever - should license this video from La Cinémathèque française if they ever reissue this film.)

[GaryC]

I saw Quiz Show when it came out and again in 2019 in London when the Badlands Collective showed it in a double bill with Marty (if you've seen Quiz Show, you'll know what the connection is). Badlands showings are from film prints if possible, so both of these were from 35mm. The blurb for the event said, "One of the most acclaimed releases of 1994, nominated for 4 Oscars including Best Picture, Robert Redford’s Quiz Show has slipped out of public view in recent years but the themes it explores are as potent and resonant as ever 25 years after its release." It does seem not to be as talked about as it should be, as it probably is Redford's best film as a director. It said something that the only 35mm print that Badlands could source had Norwegian subtitles.

[Maltic]

When these people die, I always think: "Do zoomers and younger even know who he/she was?"

He was a mainstay on Danish state monopoly TV. Broad appeal with both men and women, and yet wholesome and Serious enough for the left-leaning programmers, so I will have seen Condor, All the President's Men, The Way We Were, The Sting as a kid in the 1990's (and of course he was still starring in studio films).

[pistolwink]

I suppose I knew that Redford was objectively a very old guy, but in appearances over the past decade he was such a paragon of Robust Old Age that him dying seems a mite incomprehensible. (Not unlike Michael Roemer.)

I've never found him as compelling a screen presence as other big stars of his generation like Hoffman or Nicholson (or his friend Paul Newman, who was nearly a generation older), but he's in an impressive number of excellent films, many of which wouldn't have been made without him. I'd highlight The Hot Rock as an underseen minor classic and The Chase as a fascinating, flawed film with about as stacked a cast as anything Hollywood has put out. Setting up Sundance was also a good work, although I wish it remained as devoted to independent cinema as when it began.

I remember when the ill-fated Sundance cinema debuted in Madison, WI in the mid-2000s, there were always copies of the Sundance Catalog lying around, with obscenely expensive jewelry and other doo-dads for the ski-resort crowd -- often accompanied by pictures of Robert Redford wearing and/or endorsing the product. My sense is a lot of that money went to environmental charities so I couldn't be that mad at it.

[hearthesilence]

I was kind of surprised how much he was leveraging Sundance into a brand for multiple enterprises: Sundance Cinemas, The Sundance Channel (now Sundance TV), and yes, the Sundance Catalog which apparently was renamed Sundance Living and went downhill after it was sold off - it finally closed for good earlier this year after 35 years of business.

[dx23]

Agree with everyone that has mentioned Quiz Show as one of the great works for Redford. A very underrated film where Redford got excellent performances from everyone involved. Pretty sure it's the best performance Rob Morrow has ever done.

[hearthesilence]

When I saw the news of Robert Redford’s passing, I said, “Ahh,” like I’d just been punched in the stomach. It was physical. I felt like a crucial lifeline had just been severed.

As an actor and a director, Redford touched millions of people. As a passionate, determined force supporting independent filmmaking, he directly touched me. Sundance and The Sundance Institute changed my life.

I first met Robert Redford several years before I’d made my first film. I somehow got a job on The Natural as a stand-in. One day after lunch, I accidentally found myself seated alone at a picnic table with Redford and director Barry Levinson. They were talking about shooting a pilot for a TV series. Feeling that my MFA in Directing from NYU made me eligible to join the discussion, I asked the smartest question I could think of: “What’s a pilot?”

They stopped talking, and Levinson looked at me for a long moment. The only sound was the distant lowing of some cows.

The next time I saw Robert Redford was at midnight on a frigid, snowy night at Sundance. I was with my wife Jane, Catherine Keener, Dermot Mulroney, and other members of the cast of Living In Oblivion. We had just crossed a deserted street when another group of people walked past us.

Someone said, “Tom?”

I turned, and it was Redford. He walked up and shook my hand. Then he greeted everyone and began to speak to me in detail about Living In Oblivion. An intensely surreal moment developed. The people in my group stepped back a bit, as did the people in his group. The two of us spoke quietly for several minutes, with fine, dry snowflakes glittering down through the streetlight.

Then a woman in his group called out, “Are we cold enough yet!?” And the moment snapped quickly back into reality; an instant later, they were gone. But, there is no doubt in my mind that he would have stood there talking with me for another hour.

That was the Robert Redford I knew. When he spoke to you, you felt the connection on the most basic, personal level. The energy that flowed from him was almost solar. He had a focus, a clarity, a truthfulness, and a generosity that was absolutely genuine--and effortless.

What he accomplished in his life was greatly impressive. What he did for American Independent Film was beyond staggering. In a business that thrives on money, power, and the brutal reality of the survival of the fittest, he created a Home for us. He created a family, a support system, a place where you felt accepted, welcomed, and respected.

I’d never experienced anything like it. What a gift. Thank you, Bob—for everything.

Especially for not mentioning the incident at the picnic table.

[hearthesilence]

Robert Redford on his friendship with Paul Newman. Old stories, but he tells them best here.

[flyonthewall2983]

John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen, before Netflix made it, the script was owned by Universal as far back as the 90’s and the rumor was it would be headlined by Redford and Newman playing the cops who took down Bonnie & Clyde. In Mike Ovitz’s book he talks about the time they were briefly attached to do Lethal Weapon, which had a far more violent script than even what ended up in Richard Donner’s movie.

[beamish14]

John Lee Hancock’s The Highwaymen, before Netflix made it, the script was owned by Universal as far back as the 90’s and the rumor was it would be headlined by Redford and Newman playing the cops who took down Bonnie & Clyde. In Mike Ovitz’s book he talks about the time they were briefly attached
to do Lethal Weapon, which had a far more violent script than even what ended up in Richard Donner’s movie.

A Walk in the Woods was supposed to star them as well

[hearthesilence]

The cover for the Hollywood Reporter.

Memorial issues are probably what I miss most about "the old days" - it's the one thing major publications did consistently well and you used to see them in every grocery store and drugstore.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Clearing is maybe one of the more upsetting movies I can ever remember watching. Brutal tension between him and Dafoe’s character.