They say don\u2019t meet your heroes but we can make an exception, apparently, for Robert Redford.<\/p>\n
He came by TheWrap\u2019s studio at Sundance for an interview years ago. We were still really small and scrappy but you\u2019d never have known it by his attitude \u2013 engaged and respectful, we might as well have been one of the legacy heavy-hitters. Craggy of face, tousled of hair and twinkly of eye \u2013 my God, the guy never lost it. And he then spoke across a range of topics: his new film, diversity in filmmaking, the state of indie film, before sailing along to the next recipient of his fairy dust.<\/p>\n
More from TheWrap<\/strong><\/p>\n There will be many tributes and accolades to the man who indelibly embodied the rogueish Sundance kid in \u201cButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,\u201d the dogged Bob Woodward in \u201cAll the President\u2019s Men,\u201d the bearlike mountain man of \u201cJeremiah Johnson\u201d as well as the smooth Jay Gatsby in \u201cThe Great Gatsby,\u201d to name just a few. But Robert Redford was a monumental figure in American cinema far beyond his prowess as an actor and Oscar-winning skill as a director.<\/p>\n Redford determined early on to use his movie star status for causes more important than celebrity, and independent film is the most significant beneficiary of that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Small and scrappy was the vibe he created up in the mountains of Park City, Utah, at Sundance, the festival he founded in 1978 (the iconic name was introduced in 1991) and it practically invented the category of independent film, which took off in the 1990s. Along with the nonprofit institute and talent laboratory of the same name, Sundance has by now nurtured two generations-and-counting of film talent, including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chlo\u00e9 Zhao and Ryan Coogler, among countless others.<\/p>\n The filmmakers who got their first break at Sundance (and I\u2019ve been privileged to be present for the cultural sonic boom when a new talent premiered there, from \u201cBeasts of the Southern Wild\u201d to \u201cDonny Darko\u201d to \u201cDidi,\u201d to name a few) owe it to Redford. And so do all of us lovers of film.<\/p>\n \u201cBob,\u201d as everyone at Sundance called him, would walk around the festival every January like a proud dad, greeting regulars and fans alike, doing what he loved \u2013 building a community for independent film, the creative pipeline that feeds Hollywood. The out of the box creativity that Sundance nurtures drives the vitality of the Hollywood movie pipeline, whether that\u2019s Coogler moving on from the bare bones budget of \u201cFruitvale Station\u201d to \u201cBlack Panther\u201d and \u201cSinners,\u201d or Zhao, whose \u201cSongs My Brothers Taught Me\u201d <\/strong>premiered at Sundance in 2015, moving on to her Oscar-winning \u201cNomadland\u201d or this year\u2019s \u201cHamnet.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what started Sundance,\u201d he told me in an interview in 2015. \u201cWe wanted to keep alive not only the opportunity for new filmmakers to have a place to develop, but also keep pushing that (diversity), because that\u2019s the world of independence.\u00a0Diversity is basically a description of independence. Diversity is what moves the ball for me. Give people a chance who have different points of view, let the audience decide whether they like it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Redford knew enough to support but not dominate. To inspire, not lecture. He was as in awe of the young talent at his festival as everyone else. It is a sad reality that Redford\u2019s passing coincides with struggles at his beloved festival, and the general decline of independent film as a category.<\/p>\n Sundance will end its run in Park City in January 2026, moving to Boulder after several years of struggles with cost, crowding and lack of sponsors.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not mostly the fault of the festival, which suffers from a broader crisis in the business model that underpins independent film. The model used to be low-budget films made on a credit card, sold for millions of dollars to arthouse distributors, and often enough they would become huge hits (\u201cGarden State,\u201d \u201cHustle & Flow\u201d) and a talent pipeline for Hollywood\u2019s major studios.<\/p>\n Today there are plenty of wealthy people willing to fund scrappy movies, but not enough distributors willing to buy and distribute them. The hits out of Sundance, such as the crowd-pleasing \u201cCODA,\u201d which won Best Picture at the Oscars, are enough to keep filmmakers hoping, but not enough to sustain a business. Streamers are generally making their own movies and have shut off the spigot that once saw bidding wars in the halls of the Eccles Theater in Park City.<\/p>\n Redford shepherded this legacy for the better part of 50 years, but it remains to be seen how the coming years will play out with his passing.<\/p>\n One thing\u2019s for sure: His death leaves a movie star-sized hole in our cultural universe, and an even bigger question mark for the future of independent film.<\/p>\n The post How Robert Redford\u2019s Sundance Legacy Saved Hollywood<\/a> appeared first on TheWrap<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They say don\u2019t meet your heroes but we can make an exception, apparently, for Robert Redford. He came by TheWrap\u2019s studio at Sundance for an interview years ago. We were still really small and scrappy but you\u2019d never have known it by his attitude \u2013 engaged and respectful, we might as well have been one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2028877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[373440,373116,346104,22860,357344,355728,333476,333528,304789,368026,373550,322011],"class_list":["post-2028876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bob-woodward","tag-butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid","tag-diversity","tag-hollywood","tag-indie-film","tag-park-city","tag-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-robert-redford","tag-sundance-film-festival","tag-sundance-institute","tag-sundance-kid","tag-ut"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/How-Robert-Redfords-Sundance-Legacy-Saved-Hollywood.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2028876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2028876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2028877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2028876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2028876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2028876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/div>\n