Robert Redford was one of the very most significant filmmakers of his generation. With his stunning good looks, magnetism and wry charm, he could have “settled” for mega stardom with the acting roles that he is justifiably best remembered for, in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, along with a slew of romance movies. But his own artistic aspirations and his flinty contempt for the phony and the superficial took him to even greater heights.
Redford’s first effort at directing, Ordinary People, won the Best Picture Oscar. He directed nine more films, some of them excellent (A River Runs Through It, Quiz Show, The Horse Whisperer) and none of them bad.
But Redford’s biggest contribution was his developing the Sundance Institute ad the Sundance Film Festival as incubators for other people’s independent filmmaking. His NYT obit highlights Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, James Wan, Darren Aronofsky, Nicole Holofcener, David O. Russell, Ryan Coogler, Robert Rodriguez, Chloé Zhao and Ava DuVernay as directors whose careers were accelerated by Sundance. That would have constituted an indelible legacy, even if he hadn’t become an iconic movie star.
My own favorite Redford acting roles were in Jeremiah Johnson, All the President’s Men and Downhill Racer.
