♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Well, hell, don't run off.

It's me.

♪♪ -Robert Redford is one of the great movie stars from the late '60s onwards.

He is synonymous with Hollywood stardom and good looks, and a kind of glow of Hollywood almost sort of comes off him.

-Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?

♪♪ -He was very good-looking.

He had a charisma which many other stars didn't have.

-He was one of the most beautiful male faces ever to grace the cinema.

-As one fallen angel to another, would you care to get drunk?

♪♪ -He is a very committed human being, politically, environmentally, and to the world of film.

-He's a producer in the true sense of the word.

-The money's the key to whatever this is.

♪♪ -He is an astonishingly driven and remarkable filmmaker.

You know, he's got important films made.

He's directed important films.

It'd be impossible to quantify what he's given to moviemaking.

-[ Laughing ] ♪♪ -Charles Robert Redford Jr.

was born on the 18th of August, 1936, in Santa Monica, California.

He was the son of Charles Redford Sr.

and Margaret Redford.

His father, Charles, began as a milkman and then rose up the ranks to accountant, but they were quite poor.

-He didn't see much of his father because he worked very early in the day and came back late, so he didn't see much of him.

And he also got polio when he was young.

He did recover quite well, and he went to the local school where he got an interest in painting and sport, too.

-As he'd graduated from high school, his beloved mother had died, and he talks about that very much as the first great hurt in his life, the first time he really felt, you know, something difficult and problematic and he had to deal with... and going away to university, really, to escape.

♪♪ -He got a baseball scholarship to go to the University of Colorado, which, you know, would have been great had it not been for the fact that he had personal problems with his mother dying, and it sort of went a bit wrong for him.

Um, he didn't pursue his-- He didn't pursue his work properly.

He -- He started drinking quite heavily.

He got caught stealing beer.

-He didn't make it through college.

There are some stories that say he got kicked out.

He talks about dropping out.

Um, but he really kind of wanted to, um, explore the world.

I think there was a sense of freedom that was required or needed from him.

♪♪ He dropped out of college, and he spent some years wandering America, first of all.

He got sort of idle jobs and earned some money.

-He worked in the oil fields, which is a big job at the end of the '50s in those days, and he was able to -- to make some money, a little bit of money doing that physical hard labor.

And he traveled around the country as a result.

-That kind of yearning to sort of get out of California was kind of being exercised at that point.

But more than that, he earned enough money then to send himself to Europe for a number of years.

And there he kind of-- He spent time in Italy.

He spent time in Paris.

You know, having quite an artistic, bohemian life.

He studied at the Pratt Institute.

Um, so he was quite cultured.

-Eventually, he ended up back in the States and he went to Brooklyn, to Pratt University for a while before moving to the New York Academy for the Dramatic Arts.

He started off with the idea of actually not being in front of the camera, but behind it or being a set designer.

He obviously had a flair for art and for painting.

But I think what happened was that the powers that be saw him and saw his presence and thought, "Actually, you know what, you'd make a better actor than anything else," and persuaded him to move into acting training.

-After graduating from drama school, Robert Redford remained in New York City and swiftly found success as an actor.

-He realized that then the best way-- this is 1950s New York-- is to get involved with the sort of television industry, which was based out of New York at that time, and, of course, theater.

And he began to pick up theatrical roles.

And he got into these-- kind of the live-action theater on television, which he said really was the making of him as an actor, the great training school.

-He was doing lots of television by the end of the '50s and early 60s, and a leading role was offered to him, and he decided to turn it down to audition for a Neil Simon play.

Neil Simon was massive in the '60s.

And it was called "Barefoot in the Park."

It was a chance.

He'd studied to be in the theater.

It was on Broadway.

So he took the chance, and he got it.

-So he already had a career in the theater and especially on the television before he went into movies.

♪♪ -He was making waves.

He did a small part in a film which was uncredited, but his first major role was in "War Hunt," which was quite a low-budget Korean War film.

-Sir, I just saw Endore.

He had his knife and that stuff he puts on his face when he goes out.

I saw him.

He took Charlie with him this time.

They went out.

-I don't understand.

You're saying "out."

He went out tonight?

Doesn't he understand there's a cease-fire order?

-Yes, sir.

He signed the order just like the others.

-That was quite a big part, because he played a young G.I.

in the Korean War one of whose mates was a strange man who seemed to love killing the enemy, and, in fact, was a serial killer.

-What's quite interesting about "War Hunt" is it's the first time that Robert Redford meets Sydney Pollack.

Sydney Pollack obviously is better known as a director, but he did act a fair amount, as well, certainly as a younger man.

That really was the start of what was a really significant relationship in Redford's career, and he ended up making more films with Sydney Pollack than any other director.

-What's the matter?

-My father just died.

He had the golden touch.

Did you ever hear of the Slumber-Rite Mattress?

Hm?

No?

Well, it's a big money maker.

What am I gonna do with it?

I, uh-- I never had to worry about a place to sleep.

-In 1965, he was cast in a film called "Inside Daisy Clover," starring Natalie Wood.

And it was very risky for Robert at this point because he, uh, was asked to play a bisexual who was also a quite, I guess you'd say, dicey character.

It wasn't a good character.

It wasn't a good person.

Which was pretty risky in those days to do that.

-Originally, the character was supposed to be homosexual, and at sort of Redford's behest, it was sort of softened to allow it to be bisexual.

-His agent really advised him against it.

He said, "You really cannot play this kind of role."

He decided he wanted to do it anyway, which shows the kind of challenges he was prepared to take on from a very early age as an actor.

-Robert Redford was noticed.

It was a very sort of difficult part, and people saw him, and so it was important for him.

-You look good.

You look good.

♪♪ Guess I don't look so good.

♪♪ [ Sighs ] I missed you, Anna.

-Bubber... -Like a lifetime.

-His next film was "The Chase," in which he played with Jane Fonda, the first of many appearances with her.

That, again, was a bit of a risk because instead of playing the handsome leading man, he played a villainous man who had just left jail and was a roughneck, really.

-He plays an escaped convict and he's on the run, being pursued by Marlon Brando of all people.

Brando was a bit difficult because halfway through the film, he decided he didn't like the role after all.

It's always interesting to see Redford step out of the roles that you think he's going to play, which is heroic, but, in fact, he never really plays that game.

I mean, he's a bad guy.

He is-- He is-- He is a convict.

But, again, it's a multi-layered performance.

-I said, "The next time anybody talks to me or tries to make me do anything, they're gonna be talking to Bubber Reeves when he's dead."

They said, "Alright.

Alright, boy.

You're free."

Because when you're willing to die... nobody can make you do anything anymore.

-So he was a leading man who was prepared to do something different rather than just play a solid leading-man part.

-Mr.

Paul Bratter.

-Yes.

-And is Mrs.

Bratter staying with you?

-My mother?

I mean -- Oh!

Mrs.

Bratter.

Yes.

Mr.

and Mrs.

Bratter.

[ Bell dings ] -How long will you be staying with us, Mr.

Bratter?

-Six days.

-And nights.

-It's a pleasure to have you at the Plaza.

1249.

-I think the film that really put him really on the map was the film of "Barefoot in the Park, the Neil Simon play that he'd done on Broadway.

And he reprised the role of the young, conservative, rather buttoned-up lawyer who marries a free spirit, in this case, Jane Fonda.

It's even better than the play.

I mean, it is a perfect pairing.

He manages somehow to be both stuffy and charming at the same time.

She is his perfect foil because she is completely wild.

I mean, "Barefoot in the Park" is what she does.

She walks through the park barefoot in winter in the snow.

She's that kind of woman.

-Jane Fonda fell in love with him.

Their chemistry was wonderful on screen.

She was just so in love with him.

But she said, "He doesn't like doing love scenes."

And so he was very businesslike.

And he -- They became great friends.

But there was never anything between them as far as he was concerned.

-You're always dressed right.

You always look right.

You always say the right thing.

You're very nearly perfect.

-That's a rotten thing to say.

-Before we were married, I thought you slept with a tie.

-No, just for very formal sleeps.

-It was a big hit within America, certainly.

And I think it's a film that kind of set him up, as, you know, a great acting force.

-Look out there.

-What?

-We got to talking to some gambler that night, and he told us about an Indian, a full-blooded Indian, except he called himself with an English name, Sir Somebody.

-Lord Baltimore?

-Lord Baltimore.

That's right.

And he could track anybody, over anything, day or night.

-So?

-That guy on the ground -- I think it's him.

-"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is the watershed moment in Robert Redford's career.

You know, the Western would become a massive sensation.

But as they were kind of developing the story, they'd cast Paul Newman, who was a huge star, and they were looking for, you know, his perfect partner.

And various actors had sort of come up.

And George Roy Hill, who was the director, had met with Redford and liked him.

But Redford, even after "Barefoot in the Park," was on the studio radar very low down.

George Roy Hill said to Newman, "Just have lunch with the guy.

Just go and meet him."

Newman went along, had this half-an-hour lunch.

And they kind of sized each other up, and they kind of chatted.

And Newman goes, "Yeah.

I get it.

I like you."

And he came back , and he fought.

And Redford talks about the fact that George Roy Hill fought for him and wouldn't let it go.

And then Newman fought for him.

And the studio gave in.

-He actually swapped roles with Paul Newman in the film.

And Paul Newman thought that that was better.

But there were many other people, including Marlon Brando, who were tested for the film.

But Paul Newman insisted on this handsome young man, Robert Redford.

And of course the film was a massive success.

-Alright.

I'll jump first.

-No.

-Then you jump first.

-No, I said.

-What's the matter with you?!

-I can't swim!

-[ Laughs ] Why, are you crazy?

The fall will probably kill you.

-It was a mammoth success.

It was a beautiful script.

It had a killer song in it.

It had everything going for it.

The main thing about it was the chemistry between Newman and Redford as Butch and Sundance.

It just -- They fired sparks off each other.

They were funny.

They were like a double act that had been working together for years and years and years.

And this, of course, was the first thing they'd ever done together.

-Can you take the two on the right?

-Kid, there's something I think I ought to tell you I never shot anybody before.

-One hell of a time to tell me.

-He'd become a world star because of that film.

And he became a great friend of Paul Newman's the rest of his life.

-It won everything going.

And it was Robert Redford's first big notice and first big win as an actor.

He won the BAFTA.

-I didn't do my job.

The one time in my life I had a job to do.

-Wasn't worth doing then, it's not worth doing now.

-You and your goddamned Indians and your goddamned talk.

I know where he's going, and I'm gonna get him.

He belongs to me.

-"Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here" is a film that starts to reveal, I think, Redford's environmental concerns, his concerns beyond himself.

He chose this film because it, in a way, displays or reveals the plight of the indigenous American Indians.

He plays a sheriff, a deputy sheriff who's in pursuit of a Native American who's on the run for some crime.

It's very, very sympathetic.

And he delivers a very sensitive performance.

-If we don't meet up by dark, forget it.

-I can't understand it.

She didn't do nothing.

There was no reason for her to die.

-Digger, when you get back to the ranch, knock a coffin together.

-Alright, Sheriff.

-She sure don't look dead.

-She will soon.

-This film was the first of several he did which he felt were worth doing just because of the subject matter.

-Robert Redford's input was integral to the production of the 1969 winter sports film "Downhill Racer."

-It would be hard on top and soft underneath.

If I could have started five places ahead, just five, then I would have at least had good snow.

I wouldn't have lost my balance in the ruts.

I wouldn't have had to pull so hard -- -No.

What do you mean, no?

If I'd have started in the first 15, I could have won it.

-No.

-You just weren't good enough.

That's all.

You lost your strength, and then the bumps took you out.

That's it.

That's all there was to it.

-It's then at this point Redford has already very much wanted to manage his career in terms of trying to call the shots on the kind of roles he would do.

He was very interested in pursuing films that studios wouldn't necessarily want to be making.

And Redford sort of went in and said, "Look, I've got this idea.

I want to do this film about sort of the Winter Olympics and about skiers and about Americans and about sport."

You know, he was a sportsman at heart in many ways.

And they were kind of very skeptical.

And he said, "Well, look, give me some money to go away to shoot some footage at the Winter Olympics."

It was the 1968 Winter Olympics.

And he went away, and he got this footage.

And they still were kind of fairly unconvinced.

But it's this story that he kind of slowly, surely wins them over, taking a lot of responsibility himself, developing the script.

-"Downhill Racer" -- this has been called by Roger Ebert the greatest sports movie ever made.

I can understand exactly what he means by that.

I mean, "Downhill Racer" is Robert Redford playing a true aspirational, egomaniacal downhill racer, ski racer?

It's the sort of role that a lot of actors would either have tried to angle so that they became a little more lovable or had a little bit of sympathy.

He doesn't at all.

He actually pursues the truth of the character and the nature of the character right through to the bitter end.

-He knows what he did.

He knows how I feel.

-Well, what did he do?

He bailed out on a course he's been running every year for five years.

So, he fell over.

He can do that anytime he races.

-Nobody races unless I say so.

That's why I'm here.

That's why they made me the coach.

-It didn't go as well at the beginning in the United States, but it was a massive success in Europe and everywhere else because they saw it as a metaphor about America.

They saw it about power and struggle.

It since then has gained a lot of respect in terms of the story it was trying to tell.

-Any questions?

-Community legal service.

-Why are you doing this?

-Because I don't think the incumbent is really in touch with how people live or what they need.

That's what I tried to do as a lawyer, and that's what I hope to go on doing as a candidate.

-How do you feel about welfare?

-We subsidize trains.

We subsidize planes.

Why not subsidize people?

-Redford was already a good horse trader with the studios, you know?

He knew his collateral was in the mirror, but he also knew that he could trade it off.

So he would go to them and say, "I'll make your commercially minded film."

And he would trade off that kind of commercial film for the studios against making films like "The Candidate."

-He got hold of a script for "The Candidate," which was a political film about the rise of a young senatorial candidate who was completely unsuitable, actually.

This is the first of his really political films, and it starts showing his political conscience, as well as his conscience and other senses.

He executive-produced the film, in fact, although that is hardly acknowledged.

He didn't really want to be known as the producer of it or, you know, the sort of generator of the film.

-I think the time has come when the American people realize that we're in this together.

[ Triumphant music playing ] And that we sink or swim together.

And I say to you, maybe -- just maybe -- that that's the way it should be.

-You look back on it now, and you realize how sort of intelligent Redford is and how interesting the commentary he brings to politics is.

-"The Candidate" actually won an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

And Redford, in fact, had contributed to the screenplay.

He contributed undercover to quite a lot of the film to make it successful.

♪♪ -I ain't seen a live man in -- in two months.

-I am l am Bear Claw Chris Lapp, blood kin to the grizzly that bit Jim Bridger's ass.

You are molesting my hunt.

-And I am Jeremiah -- -I know who you are.

You're the same dumb pilgrim I've been hearing for 20 days and smelling for 3.

-Yet another risky project was "Jeremiah Johnson," which was a completely different kind of western, directed by Sydney Pollack, his old friend.

Jeremiah Johnson himself is played with great fortitude by Robert Redford.

And Jeremiah Johnson is a man who comes back from the war and decides to go off into the landscape.

He actually becomes a kind of an itinerant who lives off the land.

It's a difficult shoot and it was a difficult part and he didn't have very many words to say.

-It was a tremendously tough film to make.

All the landscapes and the weather conditions that you see in the film are real.

They're not faked.

He pushed himself to the limit in this film, and the result was and the rewards were that it was very, very popular.

It was a huge success.

[ Hawk crying ] -Hawk.

Yeah.

Going for the Musselshell.

I'd take me a week's riding, and he'll be there in... [ Chuckles ] Hell, he's there already.

-It's about relationship between man and sort of nature and the kind of country that Redford had come to embrace -- and indeed was filmed on his own ranch, his own sort of country.

-It was the first Western ever accepted at Cannes, and it's understandable because of not only its theme, the environment, but because it is cinema truly.

Several films since then owe a great debt to this film.

-Come on.

We weren't making fun of you.

-Yes, you were.

You make fun of everything.

You think politics is a joke.

-Well, but you make fun of politicians.

What else can you do?

-You think Franco is so funny?

-Franco?

Is he here?

-Yeah.

Franco.

He's a politician.

You think he's funny?

Well, so is Hitler.

He even has a funny mustache.

Why don't you have a Nazi prom?

-Well, we thought of that.

But the uniforms itch.

-In a funny sort of way, the way to capitalize on the success of "Jeremiah Johnson" was to make something completely different.

So he went and did something completely different, which was "The Way We Were," one of the all-time-favorite women's films in which he stars opposite Barbra Streisand.

-"The Way We Were" is about two different sides of America, two different sides of looking at America.

Barbra Streisand was a young Jewish radical who falls in love with a -- what we call a WASP, a guy who is sort of the opposite of her in every way.

-It's a kind of long-term, on-and-off-again romance, but over a period of four decades.

This is directed by his friend Sydney Pollack, and Pollack actually stopped it from moving into too political an arena.

He realized that what the film had to be was a romance first and foremost.

-Pop sent me a list of names today.

-"For my grandson, the following names are okay with me -- Thomas Jefferson Gardiner..." -Mm-hmm.

-"...Solomon David Gardiner..." -Ugh.

-"...and Eugene V. Debs Gardner."

-Yeah?

What if it's a girl?

-Well, if it's a girl, actually, there's only one name.

It's my mother's.

-Yeah?

-What's that?

-[ Laughs ] Ruchel!

-Ruchel?

[ Both laugh ] -So keep your fingers crossed.

[ Both laugh ] -The two of them were big box office, and the film was immensely popular all over the world.

At the end of "The Way We Were," really, Robert Redford was now a major Hollywood star.

-After that, if you thought this guy couldn't get any bigger, he couldn't actually choose any better, he comes off a Streisand film, huge all over the world, he gets with his friend -- his brother, actually, in many ways -- Paul Newman, and they make a film called "The Sting."

-Do you know anything about the guy?

-Yeah, he croaked Luther.

Anything else I gotta know?

[ Sighs ] Alright.

He runs a numbers racket on the south side.

He owns a packing house, a few banks.

-Yeah, and half the politicians in New York and Chicago.

Not a fixing in this world gonna cool him out if he blows on ya.

-I'll get him anyway.

-Why?

-'Cause I don't know enough about killing to kill him.

-So, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

He was cast again opposite Paul Newman, who'd had such a success with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," in "The Sting."

Marvelous.

And just to add to the mix, the fantastic Robert Shaw as the Irish gangster whom these two con men performed a very, very elaborate sting on.

-This was the ultimate, in many ways, brother movie for many, many years.

These guys were amazingly vibrant.

And the sort of relationship they had between them -- you could feel it.

-No sign of trouble, huh?

-No.

-What about Lonnegan?

I gave him the breakdown, just like you said.

-And?

-It's good.

He threatened to kill me.

-Hell, kid, they don't do that, you know you're not getting to them.

-It was an amazing film because it seemed to appeal to everybody.

It had elements of the thriller, elements of comedy, elements of drama.

And it seemed to be exactly what the public wanted at the time.

It made millions all over the world.

-It is the only film for which Redford has been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

-Robert Redford worked again with director Sydney Pollack on the seminal espionage thriller "Three Days of the Condor."

-Listen.

People are trying to kill me.

-Who?

-I don't know.

But there's a reason.

There is a reason!

And I just need... some safe, quiet time to pull things together.

-Here?

-Here.

-"Three Days of the Condor" is a CIA thriller.

The setup is beautiful.

He's basically a codebreaker in a CIA office.

He's a fairly lowly.

He goes out for lunch, he comes back, and he finds the entire office has been slaughtered by Max von Sydow and his henchmen.

And therefore, he has to go on the run because he's the only one who they didn't get.

-Straightaway, you know, he's thrown on the run.

It's the ultimate paranoia story.

He knows he's innocent, but does everybody else?

And as the film carries on, his own past becomes to get suspicious.

And even the audience aren't 100% sure if they can trust him.

And the fact that he looks like Robert Redford sort of adds a lovely level to that.

And it just works as a thriller.

And it's driven and smart and clever.

-Redford carries everything you're feeling, and it is a great piece of acting.

Everybody in this film is acting incredibly.

-What?

-Did you touch anything except the chair?

-You're working for the company again.

-The desk?

The lamp?

-Jesus.

They took you back.

-Just for this.

For Atwood.

-I think that this shows now that it's a Sydney Pollack film, that he and Redford were actually being able to sort of speak in shorthand.

Pollack is Redford's probably favorite director because they made six or seven films together in the course of their careers.

-In 1976, Redford starred in the groundbreaking film "All the President's Men," a political thriller based on the Watergate scandal.

-Hunt's come in from the cold.

Supposedly, he's got a lawyer with $25,000 in a brown paper bag.

-Follow the money.

-What do you mean?

-Where?

-Oh, I can't tell you that.

-But you could tell me that.

-No, I have to do this my way.

You tell me what you know, and I'll confirm.

I'll keep you in the right direction if I can, but that's all.

-To come off "Three Days of the Condor" and to go into "All the President's Men" sort of -- He was almost sort of charting the era, Robert Redford.

It's the story of two mid-level journalists on The Washington Post who realized that the break-in at the Watergate Hotel might have connections with the Republican Party.

What's fantastic is -- and what's less heralded about the film is -- how much it was driven by Redford.

-Redford has always been a political animal, to a certain extent, and he was fascinated and intrigued by what was going on and in fact, had already had contact with Bernstein and Woodward, the two journalists, even before they'd finished the investigation and certainly before they'd actually written their book.

By the time, I think, half the book was written, he'd optioned it for a movie because he just knew.

He just knew this was going to make a great movie, and he didn't want anybody else to get hold of it.

The resulting movie is probably one of the best political thrillers, certainly of the decade, if not, you know, of the millennium.

-Look, McGovern's dropped to nothing.

Nixon's guaranteed the renomination.

The Post is stuck with a story no one else wants.

It'll sink the goddamn paper.

Everyone says, "Get off it, Ben."

And I come on very sage, and I say, uh, "Well, you'll see.

You wait till this bottoms out."

But the truth is, I can't figure out what we've got.

What else are you working on?

-Well, we're after a list of CREEP employees.

-Where is it?

-It's classified.

-Well, how you gonna get it?

-We haven't had any luck yet.

-Get some.

-What Redford says about that film and what his concept for it is, "This is not a film about Watergate.

It is not the story of Watergate.

It is the story of the two journalists."

-Both Redford and Hoffman spent a lot of time in the offices of The Washington Post to make sure that they got all the little details about how you report, how you do stuff, how you locate information right.

-It was amazing at the time because this was right after, about two years after Richard Nixon, the President of the United States, stepped down.

This had never happened before.

In a way, you couldn't understand what it was about or how dangerous it had been.

But Robert Redford put it on screen to let you understand what had happened through the agency of these two young reporters.

-M could be McCord.

That's out.

It could be Mardian.

It could be... Magruder.

-I think it's Magruder.

-I think it's Magruder, too.

-Why do you think it is?

-Because he was second in command under Mitchell.

Why do you think it's Magruder?

-I think it's Magruder because, at one time, he was the temporary head of the Committee to Re-Elect before Mitchell.

-I think you look back on it and you look at what Redford contributed, and that's he was the driving force and he was the one who wanted to make a film about these guys and about America and about politics and about journalism and about ideals.

-It must be emphasized that it would never have been made but for him in the first place.

♪♪ -In 1978, Robert Redford started an innovative organization to aid independent filmmakers.

-After "All the President's Men," he was now in a good financial position.

By that time, he had his own ranch in Utah, and he decided that he wanted to do something with it properly.

-He created the Sundance Institute in Utah, and it was because he wanted to encourage the art of the independent filmmaker and give them a marketplace and a voice.

And it's been enormously successful.

This went on to create the Sundance Film Festival, which has become enormously influential as a marketplace for independent filmmakers and is now recognized around the world as the place to -- if you can get in -- to show your films.

-It'd be impossible to quantify what he's given to moviemaking.

You know, without Robert Redford, you don't have Steven Soderbergh or Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas, you know, Anderson, you know?

Important latter-day filmmakers have all come out of his collegiate atmosphere.

-Go ahead.

That's protein.

-"Brubaker" continues Robert Redford's deep concerns about the society, deep concerns about injustice.

And it's about, basically, the American prison system and the industrial complex.

-He plays the governor of a prison, a terrible prison in which a lot of bad things happen.

He comes in to try to make it a better place, and in doing so, he becomes one of the inmates to try and find out exactly how the inmates suffer.

-Of course, once he finally emerges and takes control, he comes up against the authorities when he wants to actually reform the prison, not just the prison itself, but the prison system entirely.

It's a very, very liberal film.

-The collapsed roof isn't covered at all.

That's what I mean.

But we do have coverage for thrashing machines, balers, swatters, a tractor.

-Sounds pretty sensible to me to have the things insured.

I approved those policies personally.

-You did more than that.

Your company sold us the policies.

The only trouble with it is, we don't have any of that equipment on our farm.

It doesn't exist.

-It was a box-office hit, and it got an Oscar for the Best Writing.

So that was good for Redford because he had actually done quite a lot with the script himself.

-Redford chose not to star in his directorial debut, "Ordinary People."

-I want a really good picture of the two of you, okay?

-No, but I really want to get a shot of the three of you men.

Give me the camera, Calvin, please?

-Not until I get a picture of the two of you.

-Cal!

-Hang on a second.

-Give her the goddamn camera!

-I think it was kind of written in the stars a little bit that Redford would eventually go to -- turn to directing.

What did surprise people was the subject matter he chose to portray.

-Judith Guest wrote a book called "Ordinary People."

It was a novel about a family, very sort of upper-middle-class American family.

And one of the children commits suicide, and this family is coping with it.

Robert Redford knew about the book, knew it was coming, and it spoke to him.

He went to Hollywood.

He's a huge star at that point.

He went knocking on doors.

They said, "No way.

It's too depressing.

Nobody will want to see this."

But he said, "If I can bring it in under a certain amount of money, can I do it?

Can I do it for a certain amount of money?"

And they said, "Okay."

-Immediately you can tell watching it you're in the hands of someone who cares about performance.

-He got extraordinary performances out of Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton, and a particularly amazing performance from Mary Tyler Moore.

I think he was responsible for changing everybody's attitude about Mary Tyler Moore.

-He walks all over us and then you go up and apologize to him.

-I'm not going to apologize.

-Yes, of course you are.

You always do.

You've been apologizing to him ever since he got home from the hospital, only you don't see it.

-I'm not apologizing.

I am trying to goddamn understand him!

-Don't talk to me that way.

Don't you talk to me the way he talks to you.

-Beth... -Once he unleashed it, it became this huge hit.

I mean, it swept the board at the Oscars, and Redford got best director.

So, you know, as an announcement of yourself as kind of a filmmaking force, it was astonishing.

-You make the rules?

-That's right.

That's right.

And you ain't been playing by 'em.

All these other guys play by 'em.

Don't you remember signing a contract?

-Yeah, I remember signing a contract to play ball, not to be put to sleep by some two-bit carny hypnotist.

I won't do that.

-You're going down.

You hear me?

-It took me a long time to get here, Pop.

I won't do it.

I can't.

-"The Natural" feels like a film that had been sort of created to embody the Robert Redford mythology.

It's the story of an unknown who becomes a baseball superstar.

And Redford is very honest about it, I took it, because, "That was the life I didn't get to lead.

That was the dream I never dreamt."

What is glorious about the film is that, you know baseball is the great metaphor for America.

And then added to that is this kind of level in "The Natural," where the writer sort of embraced all these kind of Arthurian myths.

The thing is full of symbolism.

It's completely absurd that Redford is this kind of Galahad-like figure who's chasing the Holy Grail.

But in the end, I think you watch it because you want to see Robert Redford hit a home run into the light and the light shatter in these kind of fireworks.

-It was beautifully made, and as a sports film, it was very successful.

Once again, he'd made a sports film that was well worth looking at.

[ Lion growls ] -Have you -- Do you have a gun?

-She won't like the smell of you.

-Shoot -- Shoot it.

-She's had breakfast.

-Don't... [ Lion growls ] [ Exhales heavily ] Sh-- Please shoot her.

-No, let's give her a moment.

-Oh, my God, shoot her!

-He then went on to make "Out of Africa," which is one of the great exotic romantic films, in which he plays the real-life character of Denys Finch-Hatton, who was a big game hunter.

And it's his relationship with the author Karen Blixen, who's played by Meryl Streep, and what happens in the course of their romance in Africa.

-It's kind of a very different pairing, I think.

Streep is different from, like, Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand.

She's sort of more coolly intellectual and sort of more upstanding and sort of rigid.

So it's a different kind of pairing.

It almost required Redford to be softer.

But he said that she was the greatest craftsman, in terms of acting, he's ever worked with.

Astonishing.

Said you really had to up your game when you worked opposite Meryl Streep.

-"Farewell, farewell."

-You're skipping verses.

-Well, I leave out the dull parts.

"Farewell, farewell.

But this I tell to thee, thou wedding guest."

Lay your head back.

"He prayeth well who loveth well both man and bird and beast."

-Ahh.

-It's so beautiful-looking film.

It uses Africans very well, not just as standbys.

Malick Bowens is one of the stars of the film as one of her African servants.

The film won seven Oscars and was one of the big successes of that year, no doubt about it.

-I don't know that I can do anything.

But I'm prepared to give it a go if you'll help.

-[ Scoffs ] -Oh, you have a problem with that?

-Isn't it, like, obvious?

-Not to me.

Either you want to or you don't.

-Look, I'll talk to -- -Excuse me.

With all due respect, this is her decision, not yours.

-"The Horse Whisperer" is interesting because it's the first time Robert Redford directed and starred in a film he was directing.

And he said it was very difficult.

He found the sharing of responsibilities quite hard.

And it was a very popular novel.

It was this kind of huge sort of hit of its day.

It's kind of about a young girl and her mother.

The young girl has this riding accident and loses her leg, And she's played by a young Scarlett Johansson.

And the horse is traumatized, as well.

So, what happens is, Kristin Scott Thomas and Scarlett Johansson bring this traumatized horse to Robert Redford, who is this horse whisperer.

He's a guy who can rehabilitate horses by sort of communing with them almost on this kind of spiritual level.

And the kind of -- the film operates on this level that actually what he's doing is he's healing the girl, he's healing Kristin Scott Thomas, and he's healing the horse at the same time.

-It was well received.

And he does what you think he should do.

He delivers in this picture.

[ Wind howling ] [ Thunder rumbling ] -One of the really difficult films he made, perhaps the most difficult for him as an actor, was "All Is Lost."

-"All Is Lost" is just him, just him on the screen.

It's a one-person movie.

Not only is it just him -- there is no dialogue.

Basically, it's about a lone yachtsman who's out on the ocean and, quite by accident, his yacht is damaged, so he's abandoned.

He's left in the middle of the ocean.

How is he gonna survive the storms?

How is he gonna survive the sharks?

How is he gonna survive all the sort of natural elements that are going to rain down on him?

All the things that he does in this film he does is quite extraordinary.

-[ Groans ] ♪♪ -It's a terrific kind of late-career sort of venture from Redford.

-An extraordinary performance.

And he actually had a very difficult time during the shoot.

He said he nearly drowned two or three times and did all the stunts himself.

And for a man who was now 70, it was an extraordinary achievement.

-I've got this idea.

-I'm listening.

-Why don't we go into town, have lunch, just take our time and enjoy ourselves?

-In public?

-Yeah.

-[ Laughs ] When do you want to do it?

-Sunday.

About noon?

-Sounds fine to me.

-Most recently, he has made the film "Our Souls at Night," in which he again joins up with Jane Fonda.

-It's about two elderly people who decided they're gonna come together and be two souls at night.

They're gonna be together.

That's it.

There's nothing else gonna be going on.

It's just the coming together.

-It's a quiet, quite sentimental film in which these two major stars, now nearly 80, act very well together.

But it's one which shows that Robert Redford, even at his age now, is still a force to be reckoned with.

♪♪ ♪♪ -The thing to remember -- Don't tell me how to rob a bank.

I know how to rob a bank.

-Redford's legacy goes well beyond his acting and his films.

-Robert Redford's legacy is a very complex one.

Because he was just such a big box-office success, he's able to actually express his political feelings.

He's actually able to give voice to a way many people feel and put them in story, put them in form.

-I don't want hints.

I need to know what you know.

-Through the Sundance Institute and then Sundance Festival, he has really pursued the idea of giving back to his industry and allowing young independent filmmakers to blossom and flourish.

-So, it's one of his great successes as a star that he used his stardom for something very important.

-He's not as tough as he thinks.

-So, in many ways, you know, he is a true American artist because he created a community of artists and he has done great work.

And alongside that has been one of the most glorious film stars there has been.

So it's a terrific legacy.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪