Robert Redford - Michael Feeney Callan [142]
“The difference between Bob and Dustin is summed up in one comment,” said Pakula. “We were dining during the film, and Bob was talking about his mountain in Utah. The more he talked, the more passionate he became. He told Dustin how he’d found that canyon in the fifties and just had to nest there. Dustin’s response was, ‘Gee, I love mountains, too, Bob. But I’m happy to look at them. I don’t need to be in them.’ ”
But being “in” the movie, in the fullest sense of submersion, was what drove Redford. It was clear to Michael Ritchie that a process of quasi authorship was accelerating him ultimately toward directing. “His habit was to work very methodically, like a miniaturist. Some said he could be self-serving or overpowering. But my experience of him was of forensic detailing, then absolute trust. He was careful, a good team player, but he also had his own personal objective for the movie in sight all the time. In that way I think he was often frustrating for directors to work with.” It was true that Redford and Pakula had a symbiotic closeness in All the President’s Men beyond the usual director-actor relationship. Hal Holbrook and others spoke of an ambidextrous exchange that allowed both to move from one side of the camera to the other. But others speak of Pakula’s chronic overanalysis, which often resulted in long delays as he attempted to make up his mind about a scene. In these instances, said Walter Coblenz, it was not Redford but Gordon Willis who stepped into the breach. Still, Pakula never felt personally challenged. “Bob and I both had a shared visual sense about the picture. I had done a lot of conceptual prep work with Jon [Boorstin]. As I saw it, we were blending templates. I grew up on [Elia] Kazan, really loved him. On the Waterfront was the most impressive movie from a performance point of view that I’d ever seen. Later I learned visual style from Hitchcock. For All the President’s Men I wanted to blend both. Bob was in full agreement. We saw our first objective was atmosphere. We were trying to paint a picture, and so we were relying heavily on Gordon’s camera work. Gordon was a very moody worker, especially when he had a drink too many. But he was an artist, not a craftsperson, and that was a big turn-on for Bob. So, yes, we did clash, all of us. But we were on the same page in conceptualization of a big, visually gorgeous film.”
The only regular irritant for Pakula was what he called Redford’s “hurry to be on the next page.” All of the main actors—Hoffman, Holbrook, Robards, Martin Balsam, Jack Warden, Jane Alexander—were good conversationalists. “They were analysts, and they all wanted to debate the historical relevance of what they were doing. All, that is, except Bob. Which wasn’t the best situation, because Dustin would slow down while Bob hotted up. ‘Let’s just get the fucking thing on its feet,’ Bob would whisper, constantly, while Dustin was sitting, head in hands, in the corner.”
Remembering the Redford he knew on Inside Daisy Clover, Pakula perceived a change in acting style. “My wife and I watched a screening of one of his movies [in the early seventies] and she turned and said to me, ‘Blackglama,’ which was a jolt. A commercial was running at the time for Blackglama furs. The point was, you put on this fur like a layer of glamour, that it was an aura you draped over yourself. She felt Bob’s megastar thing had become a layer. On the set, he remained the perfectionist I’d got to know during Daisy Clover. He had a terrific memory for lines, his and others’, and he was unusual in his overview. Even experienced actors like Harrison Ford will show a blind spot to background action. Redford never did. His peripheral vision was brilliant. But the edge that I remembered wasn’t there. I wondered had something corrosive happened with the specific success of The Way We Were? The Way We Were made him as a romantic hero, which was largely Sydney’s doing. On Gatsby, Bob copied the formula, and it was he who suggested that