I first heard about Robert Redford from my austere, taciturn school librarian. I had approached her to inquire about a book; she was browsing through the latest Reader's Digest, which had Redford on the cover.
"Robert Redford is so divine," she quipped.
This was the early 80s, and my cinematic experience was restricted to Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones, Roger Moore, Bond, etc,
"Is he a writer?" I asked.
She stared at me with mock horror and said, "You don't know Robert Redford? ...Terrible."
She proceeded to educate me about Redford and confessed to being besotted by him since the 1960s.
"You know the problem with Robert?" she asked me, as our conversation was concluding. After a brief pause, she beamed with a succinct reply -- "Nothing."
It was a rare occasion when her face lit up and she even mustered a smile and a sense of humor.
This was the impact that movie superstars once had on audiences.
Redford began his acting career on stage in New York, and he also made numerous guest appearances on television. Big screen success was achieved with the romantic comedy Barefoot in the Park (1967).
Redford could have continued playing the romantic lead in similar comedies; this would have been safe and easy, and he would have been hugely successful. But that's not the path he wanted to embark upon.
In 1969, Redford appeared alongside Paul Newman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Redford played a dark, brooding, and menacing outlaw, the Sundance Kid, while Newman played the garrulous and seemingly amiable Butch Cassidy. The film was an enormous success and made Redford a superstar.
Achieving superstardom is most difficult, but maintaining this status is even more challenging.
Redford wasn't going to be conventional. Among Redford's unconventional choices was the political satire The Candidate (1972). The film depicts the frivolity in electoral politics where the focus is on the candidate's appearance rather than the contents of the candidate's campaign manifesto.
Next, Redford then reteamed with Paul Newman in the enjoyable crime caper The Sting (1973); the film was an enormous critical and box office success.
More success came Redford's way in 1973, with the romantic period drama The Way We Were and the western Jeremiah Johnson, where Redford played a deserter choosing to live like a hermit in the mountains, but who is forced into violence after the Crow tribe massacres his loved ones
The following year, Redford played the titular character in The Great Gatsby (1974), which was a somewhat uninspiring but faithful adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterful novel. The film was technically brilliant, but it lacked soul and emotional depth.
In 1975, Redford appeared in the 1920s aviation drama, The Great Waldo Pepper, and the tense spy thriller Three Days of the Condor (1975). This was just after the Nixon era, when Hollywood depicted nefarious agents of the deep state as villains.
Redford's character took on Nixon again in All the President's Men (1976). Redford played Bob Woodward, and Dustin Hoffman played Carl Bernstein. While the film functions as a David vs. Goliath story of a newspaper versus the Nixon administration, it also depicts the collusion between a disgruntled deep state agent and the media. The film works best as a detective story.
During the 1980s, Redford starred in the baseball fantasy drama The Natural (1984) and Sydney Pollack's epic romance Out of Africa (1985). His finest film during that time was Brubaker (1980), where Redford played a principled prison warden who takes on corruption and violence within the penal system.
The 1990s didn't begin well for Redford; he appeared in Sydney Pollack's Havana (1990), which was his first undisputed box-office bomb and critical failure.
Redford then appeared in the controversial Indecent Proposal (1993), in which his character offers a million dollars for a one-night stand with Demi Moore's character. The film attempted to explore the oldest question: Can money buy happiness? The film was a huge box office success.
His other notable pictures as an actor in subsequent years included the survival drama All Is Lost (2013), in which Redford played the only character in the film who is lost at sea. Redford received great plaudits for his sterling performance.
Redford achieved blockbuster success playing the main antagonist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014).
In 2015, Redford played Dan Rather in Truth, the film covered the scandal that led to Rather's sacking from CBS News. The film was aimed at cleaning up Rather's tainted image. It wasn't particularly well made and was panned for not being truthful.
Redford's performance in the romantic drama Our Souls at Night (2017) earned him praise from fans and critics.
His final performance was in The Old Man & the Gun (2018), where Redford played a septuagenarian gentleman bank robber. Redford's effortless presence and charm elevated the picture.
Redford never received an Oscar for his acting, perhaps because his acting wasn't demonstrative and never showed the effort or the performance. He was always real and in the moment. Perhaps his star charisma also played a part in denying him acting trophies; critics and peers probably assumed he was just being the charismatic leading man.
Redford did receive the coveted Oscar trophy as a filmmaker in his directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), about the disintegration of a wealthy family following the death of one son in an accident. Redford also received a nomination for Quiz Show (1994) about a quiz show scandal during the 1950s.
Redford also directed A River Runs Through It (1992) about the life of two brothers -- one reserved, one rebellious -- growing up in rural 1920s Montana.
His final film as a director was the political thriller The Company You Keep (2012). Redford played a left-wing terrorist who evaded the authorities for 30 years, but is on the run after being exposed by a reporter. The film was a compelling thriller and a character piece, but was slammed for glorifying Marxist terrorists as well-meaning but misguided souls.
Many of Redford's films seemed like a love letter to nature. His films were usually set in rural America, and the natural landscape was almost like a character in these films. Redford became a prominent advocate for the environment. "Ours is a sick planet because of our behaviour on it," he said in a 2014 interview. He was critical of what he called overdevelopment; the beauty of the mountains, rivers, and greenery was replaced by soulless concrete jungles.
While Redford impressed his fans with his films and his advocacy for nature, his most significant contribution is extending a helping hand to newcomers once he crossed the bridge to superstardom.
The biggest challenge faced by aspiring filmmakers is navigating through the Hollywood studio system, which abhors the bold and the fresh in favor of the conventional.
Redford had experienced this mentality; he therefore dedicated a significant portion of his life to creating a platform to enable new artists to express themselves.
Redford founded the Sundance Institute to provide creative and financial support to independent filmmakers and became chairman of the Utah/US Film Festival, later renamed the Sundance Film Festival. Trailblazing filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson, and Steven Soderbergh began their cinematic journeys with Sundance.
Redford could have made many more films and earned considerably more during his prime in the 70s and the 80s had he not been part of the Sundance movement, but he was keen to give back to a community that gave him his success.
Redford's life philosophy can be summarized with the quote that “Life is essentially sad. Happiness is sporadic. It comes in moments, and that’s it. Extract the blood from every moment.”
Robert Redford always marched to the beat of his own drum and chose the path that he thought was right, which wasn't necessarily the most lucrative or conventional path.
For his films, his advocacy, and the movement that gave voice to many voiceless artists, Robert Redford deserves to be celebrated.
Image: Georges Biard