A beautiful tribute to an outstanding talent. His films resonate in a way few do. Don't forget Horse Whisperer in your list of his films. Definitely a favorite.
What a great tribute to one of the greatest actors ever! I love how you point out that Hollywood doesn’t make great movies like those that Redford starred in and directed anymore. Movies that stirred our hearts and our minds no matter what our politics, our socio-economic status, or location. The current generation doesn’t know what that feels like. ❤️
I was just thinking the same thing. Movies like Suddenly Last Summer or Come Back, Little Sheba, or The Little Foxes, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Cool Hand Luke, Five Easy Pieces, The Mortal Storm, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Can't be made today largely because the audience is no longer capable of understanding subtlety or layered meanings.
As a Southern Californian, I'm not real familiar with Boulder, CO. I believe it is a university town, and I would imagine much more politically left than Park City, Utah which is still probably solidly conservative. Being more pro-free-enterprise, I would imagine Park City (a more exclusive ski resort than those near Boulder) is booming, at least compared to Colorado. So, bigger demand for stuff in Park City means higher prices for things like land, compared to Boulder. This is my guess.
What a thoughtful piece. This was very interesting to read. I think you’ve pinpointed the reason why so many Hollywood movies today seem so empty, with no message, no real point or concept to relay. It’s all about “special effects” and quick action, violence, always trying to hold the viewer’s attention…I think movies should engage you with its content and force you to think of concepts and to “feel”. This is why some movies are timeless. Thanks for sharing your post.
It's interesting. I watched the trailer for the end of A River Runs Through. It's beautiful. And it's slow paced for this world. Perhaps it speaks to the need to slow down, be present and a bit contemplative. Beautiful ending.
You’ve pinpointed why I can remember all the great actors and films I saw 50, 60 years ago, but don’t even think of going to the movies anymore. Special effects, stereotyped characters, preachy messages and predictable endings took the heart and soul out of the experience of being enraptured by a great film with heartbreaking performances. Music and art can still move me, thankfully, but sadly, the movies are DOA.
You, along with Andrew Klavan and the guys at Racket News, have helped me to better understand the importance of the arts in shaping and interpreting both history and the time we live in. It is a tragedy that a talented writer such as yourself had to pay the price of speaking truth as you watched the industry in which you had invested so much of your life and creativity kick you to the curb while it was self destructing. I admire your courage.
Maybe your most heartfelt piece, Sasha... sent chills down my spine... Robert Redford was such a great actor, great director, and above all (from what I could tell) a great human being... So modest and self-effacing when he had so much to be immodest and self-aggrandizing about...
And such a body of work, both as actor and director. I forgot he made "A River Runs Through It," a neglected classic.
Yeah, Robert Redford and Paul Newman, what Hollywood once was and never will be again.
Self-effacing. A great observation. In this current iteration of “Hollywood!”, we have to put up with a no-name when she screams, “Free Palestine!” And her bare shoulders are covered up in the subsequent propaganda video. You go girl, river to the sea.
Bette Davis et al. did The Hollywood Canteen during WWII. Maybe the last time I watched The Academy Awards is when Roman Polanski was given a tearful standing O by his peers.
# MeToo? The corruption is off the charts, and they don’t even make good films anymore.
Redford was great. The movies were just “movies,” and they were great. I know he was liberal; so am I, really. Did Redford do social media? He didn’t need to.
I always thought Out of Africa was about an idiotic woman who married the brother of the man she really loved, then followed her alcoholic and syphilitic husband to build a coffee plantation where none such could succeed, all the while condescending to the natives . . . and then fell in love with an unfaithful and wandering SOB who could not be counted on for anything more sincere than a good hair wash. Then at the end, when all is in ashes, she calls her beloved servants together to tell them, good luck with your devastated lives, I am going back to my comfy home.
Interesting take. Thanks. We watched different movies though. It must be terribly difficult watching movies about another time and place with a set of facts and beliefs tempered by strict historical references modulated by notions of progress. However and whenever achieved, or not.
You note certain facts, while true (or in the near surround), they demand a new script, but with different actors, a different director, different producers too. The last so different, your movie would never be made. As nobody would want to make it for want of a paying public. Lol In the book by Karen Dinesen (Von Blixen), Dennys Finch Hatton comes in only toward the end, not the real focus of the book which was the farm life there in that time and place and people. Complex histories, actions and stories. The producer, actors, director made a visually arresting film of a great though improbable love story set to a terrific score. I’m thankful to count it among my favorites.
Oh, thanks for your deep thoughts, and for all I know Out of Africa may be a cinematic triumph, a movie for the ages. I am not arguing against that. All I am saying is the characters are stupid and selfish people doing stupid and selfish things, all leading to heartbreak and ashes . . . with the native people who had trusted those stupid and selfish characters with their lives winding up devastated and hopeless. I am sure great art can be and often is made out of stupid people's stories, as is the case here. But, I guess in the end, damn--worthless and despicable as he is as a trustworthy man of character, Denys sure can give a good hair wash. And that's what life is about, in the end, isn't it.
I didn’t express any deep thoughts. After your first note, I’d have told you if I was so you could be sure to take notes. But ya, ya, ya. I get it. I can summarize your Out of Africa movie thoughts in five words, only two more than the title itself. “Stupid people doing selfish things.” If I wanted to impress, I’d add a few more words, “and hurting innocent natives that might have been productively working shepherding cattle.” Seventeen words. A freshman at Berkeley taking an introductory Critical Theory Movie Appreciation course would have a difficult time topping your proposed summary. And get an “A+” for it.
The Candidate always stands out in my mind as one of Redford's best films (no slight to Butch Cassidy, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, The Natural et al). Another one that has always stuck with me is Brubaker.
The Hot Rock is an almost completely unknown movie which was made circa 1969. Redford plays the perennial screw up of a burglar, John Dortmunder. The Dortmunder novels by Donald E. Westlake are hilarious. I've seen the movie only once, fifty years ago, but the mere thought of it makes me smile.
The intelligence level of writers, amongst many others in the “biz” in Hollywood has also degraded to juvenile over the last couple of decades.
Between the degradation of education and the woke virus, people have become so dumbed down, shallow, and one dimensional, they aren’t even capable of producing challenging, interesting or evocative film or TV. It’s mind numbing what comes out of there these days. They who purports to be the elites are some of the dullest and dumbest people on earth.
They should be utterly embarrassed if they were capable of shame.
I wonder if it is too many nepo babies. After all, artistic gifts are not usually considered genetic. We don’t expect to see, for example, Rembrandt’s son hanging in The Louvre.
There is that, but it’s far more so due to the dumbing down of education over the last 20-50 years. No one is taught about the classics in literature, or history or art (REAL art), not to mention how to develop the skills in critical thinking. They are merely given Leftists activist talking points, and warned not to deviate from them. In other words: DON’T THINK for yourself, don’t question, don’t get into a debate or sharpen your own mind. And worse, don’t tolerate anyone who speaks outside their orthodoxy.
As a result, they can’t write because all those qualities are essential to good writing. They can only mass produce the same tired theories and fables they’ve been programmed to repeat.
If you watch some of Charlie’s debate videos this reality is on display by so many kids who do not know how to support an argument, or even articulate it. Instead, they often resort to ad hominem attacks and deflections. He did so many kids a service by exposing those shortcomings and many are forever grateful.
Our kids have been soooo cheated for so long and we’re now paying the price for allowing it to go on for so long.
No I know. Before NAZI, the Germans were revered for there intellect in polite society. Foremost was Goethe, or however you spell it. His school emphasized Greek, Hebrew, horse riding and sword fighting. We need to get back to what they needed to back to in that song Woodstock.
At the very least it’s exposure to the great books, to great writing, its mechanics, styles and nuances. Sure, most kids glaze over such subjects, but seeds get planted. And challenging them gets more results than lowering standards ever will.
It’s up to schools to hike up their standards instead of lowering them. That s a disservice to all students on all levels. Not to mention our future for this country.
So... Teachers are not getting their objectives... or... maybe the idea is not make children "learn" the Classics, but help them to feel classics, to link some of them to real life .. possible years later they are going to look these books.
Many English teachers are trying, believe me. We do hope connections are being made, and work very hard with writing, projects, discussions, and activities to promote love of classic literature. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge today. My last administrator told our high school English teacher to limit homework to just a few minutes a night. It’s very difficult to teach a major novel like Jane Eyre, Gatsby (hey, there’s Robert Redford!), Les Miserables…with out-of-class reading assignments so limited. It’s a different world. I think of characters like the girl in “A Girl of the Limberlost” or Anne Shirley or Jo March, who would have done just about anything to go to school. That kind of hunger is so rare.
There is a rather harrowing YouTube channel, Teacher Therapy, which might interest you. Its creator and host was a teacher who just could not take it anymore. On each program she interviews people who could not take it anymore and have left teaching, or are in the process of leaving.
A River Runs through it became one of my favorite stories. I was dating a girl who would later become my wife when we saw it together, and it moved us both. My memory of watching it with her feels like it was yesterday. During my teaching career, I taught the book to my juniors. Like the last line of the story, that book--that story, still haunt me. RIP Mr. Redford. Thank you, Sasha.
I’ve always wanted to see that again. I remember my parents loving it as it reminded them of my two brothers being so different from each other. I hope I can find that
Jeremiah Johnson is my Redford favorite. Three Days of the Condor and All The Presidents Men are the same movie in my opinion but both great. He was a true movie star. That “it” factor.
Ordinary People - an extraordinary movie that perfectly captures the characteristics of a dysfunctional family. It also had one of the best opening scenes with Pachelbel’s Canon playing in the background.
His passing is all the more poignant in light of the events of this last week. The closing scene from A River Runs Through It is a fitting epitaph as we bid farewell… another great loss.
"And now you see why movies used to matter, why they helped us through in times of darkness. They spoke to all of us by telling universal stories with universal themes. Living through a public assassination would ordinarily be something we could see worked out in art. We know that isn’t what we’ll see, not from them.
Hollywood no longer makes movies like these. The best of what they ever did will die with Robert Redford. What they make now are endless apologies and virtue signals at best, and agonizing lectures at worst."
Woman! Is that the truth! Sasha, what I love best about you and your writing is how it's intertwined with film. How you know the lines and can insert them into the America of today. That's why I paid the extra and it was worth every penny!
A beautiful tribute to an outstanding talent. His films resonate in a way few do. Don't forget Horse Whisperer in your list of his films. Definitely a favorite.
Not only a beautiful tribute to Robert Redford, but a beautiful tribute, by default, to Hollywood. May they both rest in peace.
Speaking of Hollywood, the latest entry on my blog is about Hollywood.
https://changeonyourownterms.com/blog/lestirepeatmyself/
What a great tribute to one of the greatest actors ever! I love how you point out that Hollywood doesn’t make great movies like those that Redford starred in and directed anymore. Movies that stirred our hearts and our minds no matter what our politics, our socio-economic status, or location. The current generation doesn’t know what that feels like. ❤️
I was just thinking the same thing. Movies like Suddenly Last Summer or Come Back, Little Sheba, or The Little Foxes, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Cool Hand Luke, Five Easy Pieces, The Mortal Storm, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Can't be made today largely because the audience is no longer capable of understanding subtlety or layered meanings.
You're right! what an interesting observation.
And "Three Days of The Condor"
That was a great movie. Jeremiah Johnson was another one.
Oh, YES! Need to rewatch that one. Loved him in The Sting, but Newman stole that one, superb.
My favorite of his movies.
Great movie.
RIP Robert Redford. A class act. My all time favorite movie is Ordinary People.
The scene where the son hugs his mother really freaked me out. Mary Tyler Moore's portrayal of icy coldness was stunning.
My favorite scene was everyone gets in bed and hugs each other. Superb cinema.
In no current version of the world is Republic of Boulder CO going to be cheaper than Sundance.
You read my mind! 😂
As a Southern Californian, I'm not real familiar with Boulder, CO. I believe it is a university town, and I would imagine much more politically left than Park City, Utah which is still probably solidly conservative. Being more pro-free-enterprise, I would imagine Park City (a more exclusive ski resort than those near Boulder) is booming, at least compared to Colorado. So, bigger demand for stuff in Park City means higher prices for things like land, compared to Boulder. This is my guess.
"An Unfinished Life" was good.
Not a man's man. A woman's man. A gay man's man. No?
What a thoughtful piece. This was very interesting to read. I think you’ve pinpointed the reason why so many Hollywood movies today seem so empty, with no message, no real point or concept to relay. It’s all about “special effects” and quick action, violence, always trying to hold the viewer’s attention…I think movies should engage you with its content and force you to think of concepts and to “feel”. This is why some movies are timeless. Thanks for sharing your post.
It's interesting. I watched the trailer for the end of A River Runs Through. It's beautiful. And it's slow paced for this world. Perhaps it speaks to the need to slow down, be present and a bit contemplative. Beautiful ending.
You’ve pinpointed why I can remember all the great actors and films I saw 50, 60 years ago, but don’t even think of going to the movies anymore. Special effects, stereotyped characters, preachy messages and predictable endings took the heart and soul out of the experience of being enraptured by a great film with heartbreaking performances. Music and art can still move me, thankfully, but sadly, the movies are DOA.
You, along with Andrew Klavan and the guys at Racket News, have helped me to better understand the importance of the arts in shaping and interpreting both history and the time we live in. It is a tragedy that a talented writer such as yourself had to pay the price of speaking truth as you watched the industry in which you had invested so much of your life and creativity kick you to the curb while it was self destructing. I admire your courage.
Maybe your most heartfelt piece, Sasha... sent chills down my spine... Robert Redford was such a great actor, great director, and above all (from what I could tell) a great human being... So modest and self-effacing when he had so much to be immodest and self-aggrandizing about...
And such a body of work, both as actor and director. I forgot he made "A River Runs Through It," a neglected classic.
Yeah, Robert Redford and Paul Newman, what Hollywood once was and never will be again.
RIP, oh great one.
Self-effacing. A great observation. In this current iteration of “Hollywood!”, we have to put up with a no-name when she screams, “Free Palestine!” And her bare shoulders are covered up in the subsequent propaganda video. You go girl, river to the sea.
Bette Davis et al. did The Hollywood Canteen during WWII. Maybe the last time I watched The Academy Awards is when Roman Polanski was given a tearful standing O by his peers.
# MeToo? The corruption is off the charts, and they don’t even make good films anymore.
Redford was great. The movies were just “movies,” and they were great. I know he was liberal; so am I, really. Did Redford do social media? He didn’t need to.
"I know he was a liberal. So am I, really."
I think that's true for most of us on this site, present company included.
One of his best and a great love story. All truly great movies have a love story at their heart.
Out of Africa.
I always thought Out of Africa was about an idiotic woman who married the brother of the man she really loved, then followed her alcoholic and syphilitic husband to build a coffee plantation where none such could succeed, all the while condescending to the natives . . . and then fell in love with an unfaithful and wandering SOB who could not be counted on for anything more sincere than a good hair wash. Then at the end, when all is in ashes, she calls her beloved servants together to tell them, good luck with your devastated lives, I am going back to my comfy home.
Interesting take. Thanks. We watched different movies though. It must be terribly difficult watching movies about another time and place with a set of facts and beliefs tempered by strict historical references modulated by notions of progress. However and whenever achieved, or not.
You note certain facts, while true (or in the near surround), they demand a new script, but with different actors, a different director, different producers too. The last so different, your movie would never be made. As nobody would want to make it for want of a paying public. Lol In the book by Karen Dinesen (Von Blixen), Dennys Finch Hatton comes in only toward the end, not the real focus of the book which was the farm life there in that time and place and people. Complex histories, actions and stories. The producer, actors, director made a visually arresting film of a great though improbable love story set to a terrific score. I’m thankful to count it among my favorites.
Something to consider. As a movie reviewer.
Oh, thanks for your deep thoughts, and for all I know Out of Africa may be a cinematic triumph, a movie for the ages. I am not arguing against that. All I am saying is the characters are stupid and selfish people doing stupid and selfish things, all leading to heartbreak and ashes . . . with the native people who had trusted those stupid and selfish characters with their lives winding up devastated and hopeless. I am sure great art can be and often is made out of stupid people's stories, as is the case here. But, I guess in the end, damn--worthless and despicable as he is as a trustworthy man of character, Denys sure can give a good hair wash. And that's what life is about, in the end, isn't it.
I didn’t express any deep thoughts. After your first note, I’d have told you if I was so you could be sure to take notes. But ya, ya, ya. I get it. I can summarize your Out of Africa movie thoughts in five words, only two more than the title itself. “Stupid people doing selfish things.” If I wanted to impress, I’d add a few more words, “and hurting innocent natives that might have been productively working shepherding cattle.” Seventeen words. A freshman at Berkeley taking an introductory Critical Theory Movie Appreciation course would have a difficult time topping your proposed summary. And get an “A+” for it.
Oh yes!
Same here.
That is still my favorite.
I always thought his film THE CANDIDATE was the best depiction of what politics would become.
The Candidate always stands out in my mind as one of Redford's best films (no slight to Butch Cassidy, The Sting, Three Days of the Condor, The Natural et al). Another one that has always stuck with me is Brubaker.
The Hot Rock is an almost completely unknown movie which was made circa 1969. Redford plays the perennial screw up of a burglar, John Dortmunder. The Dortmunder novels by Donald E. Westlake are hilarious. I've seen the movie only once, fifty years ago, but the mere thought of it makes me smile.
The intelligence level of writers, amongst many others in the “biz” in Hollywood has also degraded to juvenile over the last couple of decades.
Between the degradation of education and the woke virus, people have become so dumbed down, shallow, and one dimensional, they aren’t even capable of producing challenging, interesting or evocative film or TV. It’s mind numbing what comes out of there these days. They who purports to be the elites are some of the dullest and dumbest people on earth.
They should be utterly embarrassed if they were capable of shame.
I think I'm going to indulge in a personal RR film festival. Watch again and learn again about what makes a great film.
I wonder if it is too many nepo babies. After all, artistic gifts are not usually considered genetic. We don’t expect to see, for example, Rembrandt’s son hanging in The Louvre.
There is that, but it’s far more so due to the dumbing down of education over the last 20-50 years. No one is taught about the classics in literature, or history or art (REAL art), not to mention how to develop the skills in critical thinking. They are merely given Leftists activist talking points, and warned not to deviate from them. In other words: DON’T THINK for yourself, don’t question, don’t get into a debate or sharpen your own mind. And worse, don’t tolerate anyone who speaks outside their orthodoxy.
As a result, they can’t write because all those qualities are essential to good writing. They can only mass produce the same tired theories and fables they’ve been programmed to repeat.
If you watch some of Charlie’s debate videos this reality is on display by so many kids who do not know how to support an argument, or even articulate it. Instead, they often resort to ad hominem attacks and deflections. He did so many kids a service by exposing those shortcomings and many are forever grateful.
Our kids have been soooo cheated for so long and we’re now paying the price for allowing it to go on for so long.
No I know. Before NAZI, the Germans were revered for there intellect in polite society. Foremost was Goethe, or however you spell it. His school emphasized Greek, Hebrew, horse riding and sword fighting. We need to get back to what they needed to back to in that song Woodstock.
As a former English teacher, all I can say is, you can teach the classics, but that doesn’t mean kids will learn them. 🙁
At the very least it’s exposure to the great books, to great writing, its mechanics, styles and nuances. Sure, most kids glaze over such subjects, but seeds get planted. And challenging them gets more results than lowering standards ever will.
It’s up to schools to hike up their standards instead of lowering them. That s a disservice to all students on all levels. Not to mention our future for this country.
I agree. I think classic literature should still be taught, and honest school work demanded and expected. I loved teaching literature.
So... Teachers are not getting their objectives... or... maybe the idea is not make children "learn" the Classics, but help them to feel classics, to link some of them to real life .. possible years later they are going to look these books.
Many English teachers are trying, believe me. We do hope connections are being made, and work very hard with writing, projects, discussions, and activities to promote love of classic literature. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge today. My last administrator told our high school English teacher to limit homework to just a few minutes a night. It’s very difficult to teach a major novel like Jane Eyre, Gatsby (hey, there’s Robert Redford!), Les Miserables…with out-of-class reading assignments so limited. It’s a different world. I think of characters like the girl in “A Girl of the Limberlost” or Anne Shirley or Jo March, who would have done just about anything to go to school. That kind of hunger is so rare.
There is a rather harrowing YouTube channel, Teacher Therapy, which might interest you. Its creator and host was a teacher who just could not take it anymore. On each program she interviews people who could not take it anymore and have left teaching, or are in the process of leaving.
Nepo babies is correct! They have no relevant life story and so they spew nonsense.
A River Runs through it became one of my favorite stories. I was dating a girl who would later become my wife when we saw it together, and it moved us both. My memory of watching it with her feels like it was yesterday. During my teaching career, I taught the book to my juniors. Like the last line of the story, that book--that story, still haunt me. RIP Mr. Redford. Thank you, Sasha.
I’ve always wanted to see that again. I remember my parents loving it as it reminded them of my two brothers being so different from each other. I hope I can find that
running on some network soon.
Thank you, Sasha, for remembering Robert Redford for us...
Jeremiah Johnson is my Redford favorite. Three Days of the Condor and All The Presidents Men are the same movie in my opinion but both great. He was a true movie star. That “it” factor.
J. J. : at 83 yrs I watch still at least once a year, know the words of the song, and hands down remains my favorite film of all time.
Always go back and watch The Candidate.
If you want to understand the corrupting nature of the political process, movie still stands 50+ years later
Ordinary People - an extraordinary movie that perfectly captures the characteristics of a dysfunctional family. It also had one of the best opening scenes with Pachelbel’s Canon playing in the background.
I was fortunate to have grown up in a terminally sane extended family. Ordinary People was a shock for me. How could any mother act like that?
His passing is all the more poignant in light of the events of this last week. The closing scene from A River Runs Through It is a fitting epitaph as we bid farewell… another great loss.
[So many of] those we loved are gone now…
One of my favorites is the little known Milagro Beanfield War. It’s hard to find, but it’s a wonderful story he directed.
"And now you see why movies used to matter, why they helped us through in times of darkness. They spoke to all of us by telling universal stories with universal themes. Living through a public assassination would ordinarily be something we could see worked out in art. We know that isn’t what we’ll see, not from them.
Hollywood no longer makes movies like these. The best of what they ever did will die with Robert Redford. What they make now are endless apologies and virtue signals at best, and agonizing lectures at worst."
Woman! Is that the truth! Sasha, what I love best about you and your writing is how it's intertwined with film. How you know the lines and can insert them into the America of today. That's why I paid the extra and it was worth every penny!
His character in "Indecent Proposal" is the only character to really piss me off. :-D
Great film career(actor, producer, etc.).