The Sundance Kid
Robert Redford charms Houston Cinema Arts Festival crowd, but no sequels for TheWay We Were star
From left, Houston Cinema Arts Festival artistic director Richard Herskowitz,HCAF chair Franci Crane, Robert Redford, and HCAF executive director TrishRigdon.Photo by © Michelle Watson
Robert RedfordPhoto by © Michelle Watson
Redford speaks with a fan outside of the Sundance Cinemas Friday nightPhoto by © Michelle Watson
A fan holds up a Redford poster from the classic movie The Natural.Photo by © Michelle Watson
Robert Redford breezed his way into Sundance Cinemas for a special Friday night on-stage interview as part of the Houston Cinema Arts Festival, which honored the big screen legend with its 2012 Levantine Award for his directorial work and support of the independent film industry.
During a Q&A session led by Channel 8's Ernie Manouse, Redford touched upon his working-class roots in Los Angeles before launching into a discussion of Downhill Racer — a well-received low-budget movie he made that would lay the groundwork for his vision of the Sundance Film Festival in years to come.
"Somewhere in my [early career], I became antsy to tell my own impressions of the society I grew up in. I wanted to do films about the America I experienced, the country beneath the sloganeering that goes on."
"The studio wasn't very supportive of a movie about downhill skiing," he told the sold-out crowd. "We were given almost no money to make it, just over a million dollars. So it had to be done guerilla-style with a very small crew. And yet, in doing that, I really found great satisfaction in having to be so creative without a lot of time and not much money."
Redford said he liked the experience of making films like Downhill Racer so much, he would do larger productions like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to afford himself a chance to do smaller projects.
"Somewhere in my [early career], I became antsy to tell my own impressions of the society I grew up in. I wanted to do films about the America I experienced, the country beneath the sloganeering that goes on."
Throughout the 1970s and early '80s, Redford maintained a string of popular explorations of American culture, balancing lower-financed efforts like All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor and Ordinary People with big-budget movies like The Great Gatsby and The Sting.
He spoke about his long friendship with actor Paul Newman, who gave Redford his big boost to stardom by agreeing to team with him in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and recounted the practical jokes they constantly played on each other — one involving a crushed automobile that kept appearing at each of the stars' homes in various forms.
Redford also admitted he almost never watches a movie he appears in. He only recently saw The Sting for the first time when he and his grandson went to the video store and both discovered that neither had ever seen the Oscar-winning classic.
He said that Barbra Streisand asked him to film a sequel to their classic 1973 movie, The Way We Were, and while he was intrigued by the idea of exploring what happened to the characters years later, he doesn't believe in sequels.
"There are too many original stories to tell," he said.
In a brief question-and-answer session, Redford said that the Sundance Film Festival, which he started in 1980 to highlight independent films, recently had expanded to London for its first overseas festival and will return to England next year. He is eyeing India and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for possible expansion of the festival.
Before entering the packed theater at Sundance Cinemas, Redford posed for photos outside of the complex at Bayou Place as fans gathered and excitedly snapped photos of him with their cell phone cameras.
"I am so happy Houston is really embracing the arts the way they are and we like being a part of it,” he told reporters. His foundation owns Sundance Cinemas, which opened in Houston last year.
