So long, Sundance

Robert Redford is out of breath. That beautiful man has just walked up six unexpected flights of stairs to his New York apartment and he is positively winded, far too tired to spar with his flammable new bride. In the 1967 screen adaptation of Barefoot in the Park, all the good lines belong to Jane Fonda while Redford complains, sneezes and puts up with it. It is incredible to see this gorgeous man—a man chiselled out of a classic superhero comic-strip—be this relatably helpless and browbeaten. Neil Simon’s play can be seen either as an advertisement for marriage as well as a cautionary tale, and Redford’s haplessness teaches us that it can be both.

- RAJA SEN

Robert Redford always gave us more than we expected. More than the obvious. Initially dismissed by many—notably the late great film critic Pauline Kael—as a pretty blond, Redford reacted by leaning heavily into complicated roles that subverted his very handsomeness, roles where things were never what they seemed. His characters were always messier or smarter or fickler or slimier or braver or more cunning than they first appeared, the actor weaponising his impossibly good looks to somehow appear casually unassuming—always to prove otherwise. Never forget that the reason Redford is the most dangerous man in Three Days of the Condor is because “he reads.”

What a titan. Redford died in his sleep this week at the age of 89, and has left behind an incomparable legacy. Not only that of a genuinely iconic movie star, but that of a significant filmmaker, an accomplished and self-aware character actor, a passionate environmentalist, and—most importantly of all—an unlikely saviour and fosterer of independent cinema. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is certainly a wondrous film, but it is the Sundance Film Festival that Redford built in Utah that brought us filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.

What do we think about when we think about Redford? Him nursing his bloodied chin in The Way We Were while scolding an idealistic Barbra Streisand for telling off the world. Or the way he scowls sheepishly in