Robert Redford

“He’s just another California blonde – throw a stick at Malibu and you’ll hit six of him”. Those are the words of a studio executive whose fate goes unrecorded. The California blonde, however, managed to leave Malibu and got a job. His name is Robert Redford.

Unlike other stars, the Redford personality remains firmly under wraps, an industry secret. Interviews are rare, and he spends most of his time in Utah, home of salt and Mormons. Never a member of the Hollywood inner circle, his career has flourished on the periphery. Film roles have been chosen fastidiously, even if this meant dropping out of circulation for years at a time. Personal gain means little (“I don’t work for money, I won’t do that”) and he is rumoured to have said no to lead roles in The Graduate, Love Story and Rosemary’s Baby, preferring to sign up for Hot Rock and The Great Waldo Pepper. Audiences stayed respectfully away from these twin turkeys, and the actor distanced himself from the media.

When success came, it was with a vengeance. This includes his portrayal of Watergate whistle blower Bob Woodward in All The Presidents Men which helped win the film two Oscars, and the four academy awards that went to Ordinary People, his 1980 directorial debut.

The latest project, with Redford as director, is further evidence of his idiosyncrasies. Entitled A River Runs Through It, it deals with the lives of two brothers (Brad Pitt and Craig Sheffer) and has at its hook the insomnia-curing subject of fly fishing. Adapted from Norman Maclean’s novel, the a film is slow moving and uneventful, a personal tale of the type usually categorised as cinematic arsenic. Yet it has taken over $30 million in America and looks set for similar European success, a vindication of the directors choice and timing. How did he know ? “What impressed me about the book was that it transcended its own medium in a way that made me think if this could be brought to film it would be a strong experience. At the same time I thought it was almost impossible because it had two elements – it was very literal and it was very lyrical. Film is not a literary medium, as you know, and lyricism doesn’t go down well in America.”

It became a mission for him to adapt the text, a work he calls ‘extraordinary’ and ‘bordering on the poetic’. The commitment was total, no doubt a combination of his Celtic heritage and the rapport he felt with the characters. “The behaviour of these people, and what might be considered as strange”, reflects Redford, “I saw as oddly familiar.” This is shown most clearly in the decision to cast himself as narrator, bridging the gap between author and audience in a very deliberate, simple manner. “It is a personal picture”, he agrees, “in the sense that anything I direct takes a lot of time, and I would have to personalize it to justify the commitment of a year and a half of your life.”

But if the director was convinced of the novels potential, its author was not. “he was a tough guy, really tough”, says Redford, of Norman Maclean. “He was very chauvinistic about his scots heritage and it took him five years for us to give us the rights. He didn’t trust Hollywood and was afraid somebody wouldn’t understand Scotland or understand fly fishing. He added those up and didn’t trust much of anything.”

The two men met on many occasions, threshing out details of the adaptation until, in 1988, Maclean was satisfied. Redford understands the authors tenacity, and offers an explanation, “he had done something very personal, and he knew it. It took him 40 years to write the book because of the pain of what he was carrying around with him, this weight, this burden. He did not take easily to giving this up.”

“A large part of my absence in the 1980′s was my choice”, he insists, after a question implying a reticence to commit himself to new projects. The choice was to concentrate on The Sundance Institute, created and financed by Redford at the beginning of the last decade. Situated in Utah, it operates out of Redford’s ski resort, and exists to nurture prospective independent filmmaking talent, and is financed by his earned income, personal fundraising, the Board of Directors and personal donations. What makes Sundance unique is its principle of selection, which strives to develop personal stories that may or may not prove profitable. “We choose by the filmmaker, not the project…we try to encourage independence and more diverse views in film”, says Redford, stressing the words like a mantra.

Sundance also holds an annual Film Festival, a celebration of and platform for unknown talent, and a recognised part of the American festival calendar. If this conjures up images of turgid self-indulgent films about Albanians, then just remember that the 1991 event premiered a low budget independent movie about six men and a warehouse. It was called Reservoir Dogs.

Redford is aware that the Institute will have to fight hard to remain in its present form, and is at pains to show the need to “keep it small, because as soon as we started the festival it became so successful so quickly it threatened to throw the whole thing out of wack. I tried to keep the scale down, to stop it becoming like Cannes, like a circus or seeing Hollywood get its hands on it and reshape it.” Sundance has now reached a point where Redford feels able to let go of the reigns. The baby can walk on its own, as he illustrates, “I feel that the people and the programs and the structure are in position so that I can go back to my own work.”

That work includes two recently completed films as actor (Sneakers, where, coincidentally, he played an independent man with a secret past, and Indecent Proposal, where he shares billing with Demi Moore) and A River Runs Through It as director. Redford, by his own standards, is in overdrive.

“I’ve learned that depending on who you are,” says Redford, as things come to an end, “and I can only speak for myself – the most valuable thing you can keep is your ability to pay attention, to observe. The threat success brings is that you become insulated and have to fight harder and harder to see.” With this he stands and makes for the door, content with this final assurance, “The lesson is to always move forward and stay ahead. Don’t ever get comfortable.”

(Peter Hill)