Critic’s Notebook: Robert Redford, an American Icon Who Dazzled the Screen With His Beauty and Captured a Nation With His Complexity

It might seem crass to reduce the work of Robert Redford, who passed away on Tuesday at the age of 89, to a few conversation scenes in a handful of movies. But if there’s one easy way to spot the greatness of one of Hollywood’s greatest of all actors — not to mention director, producer and godfather of modern independent cinema through his Sundance Institute — you only need to watch how he handled himself on the telephone.

Let’s start with a major performance in what’s easily one of the best films he starred in: Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 Watergate classic All the President’s Men, a project Redford nurtured from the start, acquiring the rights to the book and overseeing much of its development. As Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, the actor starred opposite Dustin Hoffmann as a calm, collected but absolutely relentless truth-seeker who stumbles onto a story…