Posted on 05/07/2007 6:07:58 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
"This is Robert Redford."
As I heard those words through my telephone receiver Saturday afternoon, two thoughts flashed through my mind in rapid succession:
1. This has to be one of the highlights of my professional life, interviewing one of the true legends of the movies.
2. Or it would be, except there is no freakin' way the person on the line is actually Robert Redford.
In fact, it was Sundance's publicist, doing her best impression of the boss to mess with my head, and to tell me that Redford was actually going to be a half-hour late.
But the call was significant, in that it was the first time in a 10-day process to arrange the interview that the name "Robert Redford" had actually been uttered. When the publicist pulled me aside during a media tour of the Sundance Cinemas 608 the week before, she referred to "one-on-ones" with "a select group." The name of the interviewee was never mentioned. Even on Friday, when the interview was confirmed, it was phrased rather vaguely on my voice mail as "I have an offer for you."
So, while I was pretty sure I wasn't being set up to interview Phil from Sundance accounting, it was nice to actually hear somebody invoke his name. Not that it really had to be, since Redford's name is so prominently and inevitably associated with Sundance, from the Sundance Film Festival to the Sundance Channel to the new Sundance 608. Heck, he was the Sundance Kid.
And, exactly a half-hour later, the phone rings again.
"Hi, this is Rob," I answer.
"This is Rob?" says a familiar voice. "This is Rob Redford."
Just two guys named Rob. You can't fake an instant rapport like that.
Our bond established, Redford's unmistakable voice strikes an apologetic chord. He's not going to be able to make the grand opening of the theater at Hilldale Shopping Center this Friday, as he had planned. Currently directing and starring in the political thriller "Lions for Lambs" with Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, Redford thought he would have a two-week break between shooting and editing the film to get out to Madison.
But weather problems during a location shoot in Afghanistan extended the production by two weeks, which means Redford has to go right into the editing room. Which means, he says, he won't get out to see the theater for himself until the end of the month.
"I'm just so sorry I can't be there," he says. "This is a crusher for me, because I've been looking forward to this for two years. Madison was my idea."
Yes, Redford says that the idea to make Madison the flagship city for the Sundance Cinemas originated with him. When the idea of getting into film distribution began gestating at Sundance in the late 1990s, Redford says he had two places in mind, two likeminded communities that he felt would get what Sundance was trying to do.
"San Francisco and Madison, Wisconsin, were the two sites I had focused on, and fortunately it worked out," he says. "It's not easy to open an enterprise like this because of the bureaucracy you have to work through and the permits and all that. It's not an easy thing to do this, but to me it was worth it, because of the community of Madison and what it represents, an independent-thinking community that has academics and art.
"I said, Boy, nothing would please me more than if we could go to Madison, Wisconsin. That seems like such a perfect fit for what we're trying to do.' "
What Sundance wants to do with the 608 (and San Francisco's Sundance Kabuki, opening later this summer) is to reinvent the notion of going to the movies. Redford gets quite caustic when he describes the multiplex moviegoing experience, where he says the prime directive is to get customers in and out of the theater as fast as possible, and sell them as much as possible during the interim.
"You're being worked," he says. "You're getting a marketing massage at the top of its lungs. You got three or four trailers telling you the whole movie and blasting you out of your seat. You're not left to do anything with the work that you're seeing."
For Sundance 608, the idea was to create a multi-purpose space that encourages patrons to linger before and after the show. They could linger in the theater and listen to the director of the film they just saw, much like the post-show question-and-answer sessions at the Sundance Film Festival. They could linger in the coffee shop before the show, or the restaurant and bar afterward, and talk about the film they just saw. Or they could miss the movie altogether and just use Sundance 608 as a communal "third space" to relax, study and talk.
Surprisingly, Redford says his main inspiration for Sundance 608 was the single-screen movie house in Los Angeles that he used to attend as a kid during World War II. Obviously, that theater didn't provide gourmet coffees or an art gallery, but Redford says for the price of a 35-cent ticket it did provide a fuller moviegoing experience, from the two feature films to the shorts and cartoons to the newsreel, than the in-and-out service mainstream moviegoers get today.
"I thought it would be interesting to return to that place that I remember, where you bring the audience in and you treat them with more respect," he says. "You give them broader menu choices and you show film more as a cultural experience than just straight-out entertainment."
Part of that experience, Redford says, is to make sure Sundance 608 feels like a place that's grown out of Madison rather than been imposed on it from outside. That's why local lumber reclaimed from the bottom of Lake Superior lines the walls and locally made artwork hangs in the lobby. That's why Sundance has been so aggressive in working with local nonprofit organizations, turning over the theater to the Chazen Museum of Art, the River Alliance of Wisconsin and OutReach for three big fund-raising events during grand opening week.
"It's much more of an alliance with the community," he says. "Some of these big retail giants that come in, whether it's Starbucks or Banana Republic or what have you, they claim these big chunks of real estate, sometimes pushing out the mom-and-pop places. They put their gorilla stamp on it and then take the money and go. Changing that concept is really tied to a lot to what Sundance is committed to."
Sundance and Redford have always been long associated with environmental causes; the Sundance Channel recently launched "The Green," a Tuesday-night programming block devoted to environmental themes like the new series "Big Ideas for a Small Planet." But Redford says he'd rather have Sundance 608 lead by example with such eco-friendly decisions as using recycled materials like reclaimed lumber.
"I think you have to be a little careful about being a little too agitprop," he says. "I'm more in favor of a subtle thing that people just realize or discover for themselves, rather than hammering them over the head."
That said, after 35 years of environmental activism, sometimes incurring the wrath of oil and gas interests, Redford says he sees the country seems to finally be at a point where people seem to realize that making environmentally sensitive decisions can be good for business as well as good for the planet.
"There's this tipping point that's been reached, which may be in danger of becoming a bandwagon, where suddenly everything's green," he says. "My hope is that it doesn't become a fad or today's flavor, but that it sticks. It's a chance for people to have their own hands on their future. And that feels great."
After that, we talk about the evolution of Sundance and other stuff, going about twice the allotted 10 minutes I've been given. He sounds genuinely crestfallen that he won't make the grand opening, and genuinely excited about eventually getting to Madison and seeing his new venture in action.
"I've been involved every step of the way for two years," he says as we end the interview. "I just can't wait to see that. I hope you enjoy it."
And, one Rob to another, I can tell he means it.
She said...
Youre just a Coca Cola cowboy
You got an Eastwood smile, and Robert Redford hair
But you walked across my heart like it was Texas
And you taught me how to say I just dont care
What has Robert Redford done since the 1970s? A few blockbusters in the pre-Star Wars era doesn’t make you a contemporary “legend”.
He’s got a man crush.
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