Maureen Dowd has taken some time off from beating down what’s left of the Obama administration to give some ink to the great Robert Redford. Would that Dowd would write this kind of stuff more often, at least until Obama leaves office. Redford gives her three intimate hours of honest talk – one thing about Redford (I can say this having met the guy, then fainting) is that he’s dead straight. He’s honest. He’s humble. He doesn’t bullshit you – even if you’re telling him what millions of others have gushed at him over the years. Even if you’re saying out loud that you’re not worthy to stand near him. Out loud. He looks you in the eye and tells it straight. The Down piece is a great depiction of what he’s like to talk to or to listen to. It ends this way:
He seldom watches his movies. He didn’t see “The Sting,” a smash hit in 1973, until 2004 when his grandson suggested it at Christmastime. “I thought it was a really good movie,” Mr. Redford marveled. And he hadn’t seen “All Is Lost” until May when he and Mr. Chandor got to Cannes, where it played out of competition. Mr. Chandor said Mr. Redford never even checked the monitor during filming.
At Cannes, “we walk in and we sit down front and center and that made me nervous,” Mr. Redford recalled. “Where do you escape? How do you get out of here? And then the film plays, and it was hard for me to watch it.”
Mr. Redford, who has never won an Oscar for acting, braced himself for boos and received a nine-minute standing ovation.
“It just threw me completely,” he said. “I felt self-conscious and awkward and shy, and I didn’t know what to do.” He remembers saying to his wife, the German artist Sibylle Szaggars, and his director, “Hey, let’s go.” He said he also told Mr. Chandor, “Enjoy this moment because it will probably never come again,” acknowledging with a laugh that he might have been a damper on the party. “I’m a great partner to have.”
He says he has grown more comfortable in himself as he gets older, and abides by his favorite T. S. Eliot line: “There is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
“To me, it was always to climb up the hill,” said the man sitting on his own mountain. “Not standing at the top.”
Hey now, am I getting that predictable? 🙂 I picked up Runaway. The lions in front of me went for The Love of a Good Woman. And I know, they don’t need another Borges in their miss record.
@steve50
OT: A line at my local Barnes&Noble to shop for some of Alice Munro’s work. I am glad I saw this coming, as I’m not a fan of e-books in any device.
p.s. Have to admit I’m such a #bandwagoner. Never read anything by her before. Perhaps never heard of her either.
Wow! You’ve been quick I hadn’t even heard about they’d made the announcement already… What’ll you do tomorrow? Take a flight to Pakistan?
#fancyvacation
Haha I was a little disappointed. I thought It’d be Cormac’s year (like last, and the one before, and next). Oh well. And hardly, Austin, TX can be quite the hipster jungle so heads up –as Vincent Cassel said “seduces, attack it! attack it!”
Well-deserved for Munro – Cormac’s turn is coming.
(I was wondering if you’d adopt one of those von Trier posters as an avatar – ha!)
We keep saying that every year: The great American writers will soon get their share of the big prize, but it never happens…
They are running out of time…Pynchon is 76, Roth and Cormac both 80 (DeLillo has lost his place among the greats because of his poor post-2000 work in my book)…
Richard Ford and Denis Johnson should be considered as well (or Marilynne Robinson, if she cared to be more prolific)…oh well…as a great lover of American letters, I hate to see the Swedes neglect a great strand of literature time and time again.
Alice Munro; A great choice, though. ‘The Moons of Jupiter’…what a great work. She has never written a bad or half-assed book, has she?
OMG don’t scare me. They won’t get them in on time 🙁
Priority Cormac and the Thomas please !!
Julian – I’m a big fan of Denis Johnson, too, but he’s a mere babe compared to the rest of the field.
It’s been about 20 years and Pynchon, Roth or McCarthy could be next, but articles like this (link) aren’t going to help get an American the prize anytime soon.
http://entertainment.time.com/2013/10/09/no-american-author-should-win-the-nobel-prize/
So McCarthy and Pynchon shouldn’t win the Nobel so that more Americans become aware of French and Chinese literature? LOL Forgive me, but I don’t see how that will work out. If you’re aware enough to root for someone to win the Nobel Prize, I’m pretty sure you can discover world literature on you own. This person is just justifying her salary.
Johnson… a mere babe? In terms of pages written, yes. In terms of age, yes.
But the quality of his work (which is what the Nobel prize is about) is just astounding.
The Nobel prize originally wasn’t meant as a lifetime achievement thing, it was meant to celebrate a specific piece of writing OR a body of work or some combination thereof. It’s just that with time the pressure to honor more celebrated writers meant that “the body of work”-reasoning came to be wholly dominant (rightfully so).
But, anyway, Jesus’ Son, Tree of Smoke or Train Dreams are as deserving of the highest literary accolades as anything currently being written in English. They are not that far behind a Sabbath’s Theater, a Blood Meridian, a Gravity’s Rainbow or an Underworld…
@ Antoinette
It sure is. the movie can’t arrive sooner enough. i’m also more optimistic about WOWS debuting in December. American Hustle + WOWS= the greatest christmas gift anyone can ask for.
I can’t come up with top performances because he doesn’t have that many so instead I present:
Top 5 Films with Robert Redford in any Capacity
1. ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
2. ORDINARY PEOPLE
3. THE NATURAL
4. A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
5. QUIZ SHOW
Most Underrated: SPY GAME
I have many reservations about ALL IS LOST however all of them due to the director. I can’t wait to see what he does in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER.
“I can’t come up with top performances because he doesn’t have that many so instead I present: . . . ”
Fair enough, Bryce.
I am rooting for Mr. Redford for this (next) year’s Best Actor during the Oscar mainly because of his career narrative. He’s reportedly been contributing to American, thus in a sense the world’s, film-making industry; so, apparently given this fruitful year of his, I’d like to see him garner highest recognition from his peer through this channel if possible.
All the best.
Re your Top 5 Redford list, I love love love All the President’s Men, and like very much Ordinary People, Quiz Show, as well as A River Runs Through It. (I’ve never seen The Natural.)
I also find The Sting very enjoyable — such an admirable collaboration between the late Paul Newman and All Is Lost star himself.
By the way, not certain if Spy Game should be named Redford’s #most# underrated film but to me it sure is one underrated film at very least. (So, I’m with you to an extent.)
Redford and Brad Pitt, while the latter [hyperbole of sort included] seems to have played himself trying to play a spy agent but basically ended up portraying himself, have proven they both of them did have opportune onscreen chemistry together; good mainstream storyline, too.
Definitely a film with somewhat decent entertainment value as far as mainstream flicks go.
If you’re at all a sports movie fan, then THE NATURAL is a must-see. Unfortunately, I have zero sensibility for George Roy Hill’s stuff. My favorite Paul Newman performance is ROAD TO PERDITION and the runner-up would be THE VERDICT.
Like you with Redford, I would have ditched everyone had Gene Hackman done NEBRASKA. The hell with sight-unseen and my bias against Alexander Payne. I know he’d be great, and I’d be in his camp the moment the project was announced. Speaking of underrated, how about David Mamet’s HEIST?
Agree. Heist is another good yet underrated mainstream piece especially in terms of worldwide gross revenue. I’ve checked with my sources; it garnered mixed reaction from (US-based) critics (back then). I though could live with that.
BUT the mediocre amount of 28.5M gross revenue worldwide was just too depressing for a good movie like this. (Now, we’re talking about having been rejected by average moviegoers.)
As for Gene Hackman in Bruce Dern’s role in “Nebraska”, I like the idea. [Sight unseen]
For the sake of discussion, Hackman, to me, while likely another good candidate, seems to have an air of shrewdness and wit, probably too self-aware a figure for the role. (Bottom line: I need to see the film, thus the character, first.)
For kicks, though, if the wonderful Richard Farnsworth was still alive today, he would have been 93; provided that aging (in his case [for the sake of discussion]) was not a really big concern for all involved, I would have cast Richard Farnsworth had Bruce Dern somehow not been convinced to take the role.
Candidly speaking and out of the blue, Bruce Dern would probably be my first choice as well. (I know that Hackman reportedly was the director’s first option. But to be honest, he wouldn’t make my Top 3 list.) And then, Richard Farnsworth. And then, maybe, Barry Corbin.
For the sake of discussion, Hackman, to me, while likely another good candidate, seems to have an air of shrewdness and wit, probably too self-aware a figure for the role.
Completely agree. He certainly wouldn’t do in the role as conceived by Dern. I might be out of my depth here, but I’m sure the approach to the character would have been different had Gene taken the role. And I mean from both, Hackman himself, and the writer-director. I’m cautiously optimistic about NEBRASKA. We’ll see. He’s never stroke me as authentic or honest, Payne –always condescending his characters. I supposed that when people accuse Wes Anderson of being immature and highly affected, of never overcoming the same issues, I think nah, that’s Alexander Payne’s shtick, minus the visual flair.
Richard Farnsworth would have to face the small obstacle of being dead since the previous century.
The Dude says: “Richard Farnsworth would have to face the small obstacle of being dead since the previous century.”
That’s why I already wrote the following as part of the comment to which you’ve just responded: “. . . For kicks, though, ***if the wonderful Richard Farnsworth was still alive today, he would have been 93***; provided that aging (in his case [for the sake of discussion]) was not a really big concern for all involved, I would have cast Richard Farnsworth had Bruce Dern somehow not been convinced to take the role. . . . ” : )
The republican only care private interest, not the public interest
Poor Mr. Obama. One out of every ten political columns by Maureen Dowd criticizes him rather than Republicans. That’s so unfair to him! Boo hoo, boo hoo ….
@ Kevin M.
It’s a thing of beauty.
Paulina García Best Actress for Gloria, AMAZING!!!
the second trailer for american hustle is officialy up. http://collider.com/american-hustle-trailer-bradley-cooper/
I can see the Academy going nuts over this: “ooh! So edgy! JLaw made the kid say his father is a sick son of a bitch! How cool!” Doesn’t do anything for me, but yeah I can see the Academy embracing this, the love story with David O. Russell has been brewing over the last few years and this could be the pay off.
Wolf of Wall Street to be released on November 25th
Not quite, november 25th is the deadline for Scorsese to deliver the film to Paramount, it’ll be released in December:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/crisis-averted-martin-scorseses-wolf-of-wall-street-likely-to-make-2013-release-after-all-20131009
Thanks, got my facts messed up.
Is that a kerchief? D:
Okay so what are the chances I’m going to see this before the Oscars? Are they releasing it wide, rolling it out, only for the NY and LA peeps?
I suppose it ultimately depends on the quality of theaters in your area, but they’re releasing it wide October 25.
Great article!