Robert Redford - actor/director/motion picture producer - Interview

Interview, Sept, 1994 by Hal Rubenstein

It's a long trail from the Sundance Kid to the Sundance Institute. Or is it? Not for a moment has Robert Redford paused to contemplate his monumental fame as a handsome American Galahad. Instead, he has single-mindedly parlayed his success into working for the environment and creating a home for independent filmmakers. And as a director himself, he's made personal, principled films, such as this month's Quiz Show--a trenchant fable about how a nation's faith was sold out by hucksters and opportunists. Sound familiar?

I first met Robert Redford twenty-five years ago. He'd arranged the meeting because of a feature I'd written in my university paper praising Downhill Racer (1969), which he'd starred in and executive-produced. In response to Paramount Pictures' indifference to it, Redford chose to personally "peddle" (his word, not mine) the movie to students in hopes of sparking their interest. He greeted me like the Sundance Kid--hat included--radiating charm and only lacking one of those star filters that make an actor's eyes twinkle. He was soft-spoken and humble, and he asked for help for his movie without a trace of arrogance because he believed in its message. By the time he'd left, I wanted to rent a theater to show Downhill Racer to all my friends.

Redford doesn't look like the Sundance Kid anymore, though he seems unaccountably taller and still has the best head of blond hair. But what is most striking about him is that, over the years, he has probably put his money, his mouth, his time, his energy, his intelligence, his expertise, and his muscle more fervently into the causes he believes in than any other Hollywood name-above-the-title. What's more, his commitment to the environment, to the dignity of American Indians, and to the artistic growth of independent film and new moviemakers through the work of his Sundance Institute has been carried out without any need for applause.

Redford is no mooncalf. He's a savvy enough star to know the value of blockbusters, and he has toplined films from The Sting (1973) to Indecent Proposal (1993) without uttering any they-made-me-do-it apologies about compromising one's art. But when it comes to the output of his own Wildwood Enterprises, he brandishes his convictions. The four features he has directed--Ordinary People (1980), The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), A River Runs Through It (1992), and this month's Quiz Show--have virtually nothing in common, but they spring from a single source: Redford's belief in the eternal bonds of family and responsibility to the community, and an understanding of the irreversible damage caused by suppressing truth. Of the films he has helped produce, Downhill Racer and The Candidate (1972) deal with the disparity between the popular perceptions and personal realities of those who achieve fame.

Quiz Show, which re-creates the 1958 scandals surrounding the rigging of NBC's Twenty-One and CBS's The $64,000 Question, brings all these elements together with the lean elegance, dazzling clarity, and quiet power of the gleaming Chrysler 300 convertible that appears in the film's first sequence. I won't have to think about renting a theater this time. Robert Redford can fill it all by himself.

HAL RUBENSTEIN: Judging by the initial buzz, you're going to have a lot less trouble making people aware of Quiz Show than you did with Downhill Racer.

ROBERT REDFORD: Downhill Racer was my baptism of fire as to how this business operates. Paramount probably felt they were appeasing me, but I really busted myself to make it for about $1.6 million, in an effort to prove that quality is possible on a low budget. Unfortunately, I was very naive about distribution. Because I knew the film wasn't mainstream, I asked Paramount not to wide-release it. They didn't listen to what I or the movie had to say. They dumped it.

HR: It was one of the first sports films that didn't reflect the spectator's point of view or assume that an athlete is a hero by definition.

RR: I wanted to illustrate how we've been raised with this false legacy, that it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. It's bullshit. I learned that the hard way.

HR: You have much more clout now as a producer-director. Has it become easier to do personal or "small" films?

RR: No, it's as hard as it ever was. The industry has become more centralized, more costly and more formulaic. It's so much about the opening weekend, about volume. You watch certain films and say, Why did that get made? How'd they spend that kind of money on that film? And you realize that there's an assembly line moving through the industry--a product line. So many personalities and directors making films now bring with them a mentality honed by their work in television. Their style is more overt, like sitcoms or the funny-paper pages. "O.K., folks, here's a tale that can be told in four panels. . . ."

HR: Yet none of the films you've directed have strayed far from the ethic of Racer.

RR: No. You do what you do, finally--you can't help it.