Robert Redford's great career: The Explorer of America

It would also be a wonderful movie scene: in the mid-1970s, Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman spent months in the Washington Post offices researching their roles in The Untouchables. The journalists around Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had uncovered the Watergate scandal with their revelations. One day, a group of high school students will be shown around. They jump directly at Redford, some whipping out their cameras. "Wait a minute," says a reporter, "over there sits the real Bob Woodward, do not you want to take a picture of him?"

"No thanks," says one of the students, turns around and trots after the others.

This is one of the beautiful stories that Peter Hay collected in his book "Movie Anecdotes". At this time, Redford reached the height of his fame as an actor, with successes such as "The Clou," "As We Were," "The Great Gatsby," or "The Three Days of the Condor." He outshone even the people who ultimately brought down President Richard Nixon. He not only played Bob Woodward, but also had the idea for the film and developed the material. He wanted to set a memorial to the former journalism.

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The contact with Woodward, however, was difficult. First he never answered the phone, and when Redford reached him, all he said was, "It's not a good time." When they met months later, Woodward said, "Sorry, I did not think that was really Robert Redford on the other end of the line."

Once Europe and back

If Bob Woodward did not believe Redford at the time, would spectators have to believe him? This is his last movie, he said about "A Rogue and Gentleman", which starts today in the German cinemas (to review please along here). Already the trailer gives the impression that someone has packed the seventies and Redford's life into a single film: this charming flirtation with Sissy Spacek, the role as a crook, whom everyone considers a nice guy, that laugh and that feeling that he is can not set and must always move on.

"Do you know what I do when the door slams shut, I jump out the window!" He says. And ride slowly through the dusk. The credits in the credits are the same as those on the movie poster of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," his first big hit in 1969. Was it really that?

Robert Redford turns 83 in August and says he wants to do more painting again. The young Redford wanted to paint, preferably in Europe. He grew up in Los Angeles, but as a teenager he did not think about acting, and instead enjoyed the foray through the neighborhood with his friends. And above all, the trips with his mother Martha, about to Grandpa to Texas, where he was allowed as a five-year old to go fishing and hunting. Or later into the Yosemite Valley, for him a revelation. "The willingness to open me to any kind of experience, I owe my mother," said Redford once.

In his biography, Michael Feeney Callan traces Redford's path - how he used this spirit of discovery to venture out into the world when grooms worked in Utah or in the oilfields of the West. After the death of his mother Redford went first to France and Italy. He painted and studied, not always at the university, and returned home after a year. He wanted to become an animator or stage painter and soon to return to Europe. But the "emergency plan" - his enrollment at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts - should prove to be a lucky hit not only for Redford.

Hollywood did not pass this guy

He played first plays, worked in TV films and gave in 1960 in "The Longer, the better" as a basketball player made his movie debut. The film flopped, Redford was not even mentioned in the credits, but the foundation was laid. Soon, Hollywood could not beat this handsome guy with casual understatement and ever-present presence. The roles got bigger, after the first success "Barefoot in the Park" "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" on the side of Paul Newman made the breakthrough.

But Redford was never quite the classic Hollywood star. By the early 1960s, he'd bought land in Utah, a place of refuge for himself and his family to protect nature and establish an artists' colony - which his business partners often frowned upon. As an actor, he was never the "Method Actor" who immersed in a role for months. Redford was the guy who brought his wife and kids to shoot for two months and hinted with his ease: we all play a role here. Maybe that's why he never made it to the darling of the critics.

Nevertheless, Redford took his job seriously, as demonstrated by the movie "Downhill Racer" about a ski racer. After the shoot for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" he was exhausted and injured after a snowmobile accident, but wanted to play all the ski scenes in Kitzbühel itself. "If the idiot ever heard of insurance clauses, if he crashes, we can all go home," coarsened Gene Hackman.

At the same time not far away in Switzerland, a team turned the new Bond "In Her Majesty's Secret Service", there was Willy Bogner as the only skierfahrener cameraman in action and therefore fell for "Downhill Racer" from. Redford was a big part of the film, got good reviews, but the studio showed little interest - which sustained Redford's confidence in the system Hollywood shook.

He never let go of independence as an actor, as Callan describes it in his Redford biography. That was true for details like the mustache in the role of Sundance Kid. The producers wanted to see him shaved, but Redford insisted on Bart: "That's what the Outlaws in the Wild West looked like!" The role selection also certifies Redford's great spirit of discovery. It seems as if he wanted to explore his country cinematically in all its facets.

"This shit movie is all about trout!"

Redford chose comedies such as "Barefoot in the Park," Westerns like "Jeremiah Johnson," rogue movies like "The Clou," historical dramas like "The Great Gatsby," conspiracy thrillers like "The Three Days of the Condor," political satires like "Bill McKay - the candidate "or Zeitgeist films like" The Untouchables ". He always wanted to discover something new. And thwarted the call of the heartthrob and Sonnyboys, the critics missed him for films such as "Beyond Africa", "An immoral offer" or "The horse whisperer".

One might imagine Redford smirking in his house in Utah about such stereotypes and later riding a bit around, as he used to do during filming breaks. After "The Untouchables" he took significantly less roles because he wanted to implement some favorite projects as a director. As an actor, he was always denied an Oscar, now his debut "A normal family" gave him in 1980 equal to one for the best director. This trophy opened more doors.

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Michael Feeney Callan
Robert Redford: The biography

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Droemer TB

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768

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EUR 16.99

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So he wanted to film "From the middle springs a river," a story about the yearning for past times, joy and sorrow of family life and the mystery of their own origin. A great stuff for Redford, but some studios said, "This shit movie is all about trout!" The first cut was far too modern, the voice over did not work, so Redford himself voiced his voice. But in the end everything flowed together, and from the middle sprang out a film in 1992, a highly successful one.

Redford's independence still shines on the Sundance Film Festival, which he launched in 1989. Together with the Sundance Resort, a sustainable tourism area, and the Sundance Institute for the Promotion of Independent Artists, he has long since made sure that his spirit of discovery wanders around in other minds as well. In the cinema, the audience already considered the solo performance in "All is Lost" 2013 a dignified, exciting conclusion to his acting career. But then followed more movies, and now he is in "A Rogue and Gentleman" again Sissy Spacek.

That's it then? If Robert Redford does not think twice.