Robert Redford’s disappearance is a moment of Caesura, not only from a cinematographic point of view. In over 60 years of career, as an actor, director, producer and organizer, the blond par excellence of American cinema has been able to become much more than a face, a real driving force of the seventh art, an actor capable of being a symbol of divism and together with his transversal denial.

A symbol of the best of American cinema

Robert Redford had turned 89 last few years old, he left in his sleep, forcing us to greet the last, true, great myth of American cinema in him, the one who in the 60s and 70s knew how to combine elegance and glamor, with the ability to get to anyone, to talk about real people, universal problems. The Biondo di Santa Monica has set itself in the collective imagination as a concentrate of beauty, class, elegance, however connected to sobriety, its status of stars was distant from the artifice, you also want by virtue of its civil and political commitment inside and outside the cinema world. But a lot has counted for him to get married to realistic, profound characters. Together with Paul Newman with whom he turned two absolute masterpieces such as “The Stangata” and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, Robert Redford was a symbol of a pure, refined masculinity, antithetical to mere testosterone and apparently, violence and narcissism. Very blonde, cover smile, dried physique Robert Redford was however mainly armed with two penetrating, tormented blue eyes, a real weapon that maneuvely maneuver.

Sidney Pollack, his fetish director, said that with those he knew to be the symbol of America, who in those years debated between social, cultural and moral crises not by nothing. However, he had already exploded, with romantic comedies, melodramas, then within a few years, became an actor always determined to embrace ambiguous characters, complex but rich as facets and definition. Robert Redford has moved of gender in general, without ever looking like a superman, but rather defining a realistic moral standard. “The three days of the Condor”, “Red crow will not have my scalp!”, “All the men of the president”, “The electric knight”, dangerously together “,” spy game “,” the castle “,” as we were “… the list could continue for a long time. Well before Brad Pitt he knew how to make it clear that he was not simply a good man, he was above all a great actor, but he was easier for him to live in an era. superficial, less artifact.

An all -round artist who has never stopped

Talking about Robert Redford, however, as well as elegance, style, even fashion from certain points of view obviously, however, means talking first of all of a man who has been able to help grow cinema at 360 degrees. As a director he has always married the civil and thematic commitment, even taking some good risks, and has never stopped wanting to talk about America through his eyes: those of a hard and pure progressive, always engaged for struggles for civil rights, very little tolerant towards the reactionary and conservative front. The general public loved him for “the man who whispered to the horses”, instead ignored the lucid “lions for lambs”, an extraordinary human and social fresco of America post 11 September. The Sundance Film Festival was its most important legacy, a real Camelot for independent American cinema. The modern one, as we know and love him, without him would not have simply existed. Robert Redford, if you think about it, can claim to have been a historical witness, not only cinematographically.

Even that circus of attractions that was the Marvel Cinematic Universe, his Alexander Pierce reflected a lot of his artistic path, of the cinema of his times, was credible. Robert Redford then also knew how to do something else: aging with grace and consistency, without resorting to rail or various elongations. Naturalme the Academy ignored him over and over again, he had several nominations, but the Oscar for “ordinary people” appeared a piece or a little more, then he made much higher films. “Quiz Show” in particular to recover it, a great film, as the river flowed “,” The Conspirator “, which often went to touch the painful keys of American society without any row. Perhaps more of everything, he was dear to him the presidential medal of freedom that 9 years ago Obama pointed out to him around his neck, a supreme demonstration of the fact that Robert Redford has always done politically, more than political films, like Jean-Luc Godard was preaching. Brad Pitt was the heir inside the screen, but outside, Robert Redford does not have and will never have equal, and this unfortunately is a big problem.