There's Some Joker on the Phone Who Says He's Robert Redford

One morning my wife answered the phone and someone said, “Is Miles there? It’s Robert Redford.” My wife yelled audibly, “There’s some joker on the phone who says he’s Robert Redford.” I grabbed the phone, and it was indeed him. I had submitted a screenplay written by Larry McMurtry (“Terms of Endearment, “Lonesome Dove,” etc.) for Redford to potentially direct, and he wanted to meet in person.

We did have several meetings in his modest offices that lasted close to an hour each and were much more thoughtful and substantive than most meetings I’ve had with actors and directors. He treated me as an equal, even though he was the biggest movie star in the world and I was just a relative newcomer, having made an Oscar-nominated documentary, managed The Film Fund which made grants to indie filmmakers, and co-founded The Independent Feature Project which later morphed into Film Independent which gives the annual Independent Spirit Awards. We had in-depth discussions of McMurtry's characters, the meaning of the location (Montana), and the screenplay's sub-themes about the dangers of strip mining. For a variety of reasons (probably mistaken in retrospect) I went instead with Francis Coppola to produce who shortly after went bankrupt and tied up the rights to McMurty's screenplay for 7 years, until it was finally made through HBO.

I’m mourning Redford's passing this week, not just because I knew him, however slightly, but because of his singularity in Hollywood as an actor, director, producer, social justice/environmental activist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival.

Although often dismissed as an acting lightweight because of his extraordinary good looks, Redford actually brought psychological depth and insight to the characters whom he played. Despite all of his dozens of great performances, he never won an acting Oscar, although he received a directing Oscar for "Ordinary People." (He was also awarded an honorary Oscar for "inspiration to independent and innovative filmmakers everywhere" in founding The Sundance Film Festival.)

Redford's passing symbolizes what I believe to be the impending death of the theatrical film as we've known it for over a century to financialization, monopolization, and AI. The movie moguls of old may have wanted to make a profit but they also loved movies. Does David Ellison have that same passion? (I plan to be writing more about this.)

As Hollywood declines, I don’t think there will ever be another figure like Robert Redford.

"What do we do now?" Bob's politician character fatefully asks in the final line of his film "The Candidate."

I wish Bob were still around to help us answer that question.