See the red Sun dance

 

 

Once upon a time, William Goldman, an American novelist and playwright, described him as, “Just another California blond… Th row a stick at Malibu; you’ll hit six of them.” But 70-year-old Robert Redford is as rare as they come. Chiselled features that carry wrinkles like a canvas does paint, charm that fl ows like honey-soaked nuts in hot chocolate, and a creative perspective expressed by a heart that beats free, against all the trappings of the corporate and political dogma and propaganda.

Born as Charles Robert Redford Jr. in Santa Monica, California, to a milkman-turned-accountant, Charles Robert Redford and Martha W. Hart, Robert Redford became famous, as much with his role in the fi lm, Butch Cassidy and Th e Sundance Kids (a fi lm that elevated him to a pedestal of a star and paved his way to glory) as for his stunning good looks. “People have been so busy relating to how I look, it’s a miracle I didn’t become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm,” had he to say on one such instance when his own chocolate boy image started getting on his nerve, which obviously did not deter him from portraying some of the most unconventional and impressively perceptible roles in the history of Hollywood! Other noteworthy performances include The Candidate, Th e Way We Were, The Sting, Th ree Days of the Condor, and All the President’s Men, to name a few! As one who lost his school scholarship because of juvenile drinking eff ected by a personal loss, or as one who gave shape to an independent creative movement in the shape of a fi lm festival (the Sundance Film Festival, one of the world’s most esteemed events alongside its Cannes, Toronto, Venice and Berlin counterparts), a fi lm institute, a production company, Redford has shone illustrious. A prominent environmentalist confronting George Bush’s environmental policies, Redford defi nes and demonstrates creative activism in his own right (and left !). He belongs to a confederation of confi rmed non-conformists who do not consider compromise an option and his pro-environment lobbying against the Bush Administration’s energy policy has been making headlines. While there are those who fi nd his sharp, opinionated expressions upsetting, inconvenient and annoying, Redford sure knows how to walk the talk. Th e Sundance Resort owned by Redford is an environment friendly property where almost everything is either recyclable or natural.

Interestingly, being an artist himself never dissuaded Redford to stand in open defi ance of everything that had a whiff of what he believed was anti-people or anti-environment politics – even the arclights of Hollywood – because Robert, they say, would have his own way, anyway! In fact, more than anything, his own words speak a lot for his beliefs, “It’s an honour putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul…” he says. A signifi cant measure of the socialist in Redford can be traced in the captivating cinema offered by him, aggrandising the resilience of the Latin American uprisings, especially in Th e Motorcycle Diaries, based on the journeys of the legendary Cuban revolutionary Che Guevera. Th e Company You Keep, an independent movie by him, based on the 60s movement, Students for a Democratic Society, has lent a hand in reinforcing his image as a prime celebrity endorser of egalitarianism and his left ist leanings.

Perhaps the whole concept behind his Sundance Institute was to break away from commercially motivated Hollywood, and establish a platform for independent fi lms. Even the ‘festival of dissent’, the Sundance Festival, has an anti-establishment fl avour, inclined more towards corroborating the left ist schema in the course of showcasing fi lms that depict the wrongs of the right. Where on one hand, the movies set to premiere at the Sundance Festival 2007, (18-28 January) assess American ideals and mores, some also refl ect a satirical perspective of the American way of life.

A poster-boy for American individualism, a cowboy’s soul in a weather-beaten, albeit still handsome idol marked by the Utah sun and perhaps his world and it’s woes, championing an honourable cause, here’s more power to Robert Redford for bringing to light all that he sees is dark…