Robert Redford, a hero of Hollywood and an industry-bucking maverick like no other | Canada Voices

If you had to single out a moment from Robert Redford’s vast and intimidating filmography that summed up the twin tenets of the American film icon – his indomitable belief in the power of a fully committed performance, and his never-wavering faith in the power of the fearless independent voice – you could do a lot worse than cherry-pick one pivotal scene from the 1972 satire The Candidate, in which the actor plays an establishment-bucking candidate running for the U.S. Senate.

“The time has passed when you can turn your back on the fundamental needs of the people,” Redford’s character tells a throng of supporters in the middle of director Michael Ritchie’s sharp and prescient film. “I think the time has come when the American people realize that we’re in this together – and that we sink or swim together. And I say to you, maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it should be.”

Over the course of Redford’s six-decade-plus career, the impossibly handsome, preposterously charming actor helped several generations’ worth of moviegoers – American and otherwise – realize that we were all in this game together. That, through the power of art and the persuasion of storytelling, we could collectively join forces to create the world that we wanted to see, both on screen and off. And now that the actor has died at the age of 89 – “in the mountains of Utah, the place he loved,” according to a statement released by his publicist Tuesday – there is no better time to recognize the vital role that Redford has played in stitching together the very fabric of Western culture.

First, the man born Charles Robert Redford Jr. – with his windswept hair, easy smile, and gently weathered features that suggested he lived several lifetimes before he was even a young buck – was a generational on-screen talent. Possessing unquantifiable buckets of charisma and magnetism, Redford was a natural-born leading man, a star for when nothing seemed to matter more to Americans than going to the movies.

Starting out in theatre and then television, it didn’t take long for Hollywood to realize, and capitalize, on his big-screen bona fides. Redford grabbed the attention of the camera and refused to let go almost right out of the gate, with his second film credit, Denis Sanders’s 1962 Korean War drama War Hunt, essentially catapulting the actor to top-billed status. From there, Redford continued to charm and disarm, no matter the genre or pedigree of collaborators: 1967’s Neil Simon-scripted romcom Barefoot in the Park (a role he originated on Broadway in 1963) led to George Roy Hill’s 1969’s prototypical buddy western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which paved the way for a legendary 1970s run that remains unparalleled among contemporary movie stars: The Candidate, The Sting, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, A Bridge Too Far.

Just as Hollywood was undergoing a seismic shift – the “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” era of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Hal Ashby, Brian De Palma, and Robert Altman – Redford was the rare actor to step both inside that rebellious arena and comfortably stand apart from it. He collaborated with filmmakers both classically situated within the studio system (Hill, Richard Attenborough, and Sydney Pollack, whom the actor worked with seven times) and those more suspect of Hollywood’s commercial intentions (Alan J. Pakula), all to tremendous effect.

He was your best friend, your ally, your defender, your co-conspirator in a virtuous battle against impossible evil foes. He was everything that you felt America’s best and brightest should embody – the shining light in the darkened space of a theatre, and the even darker space of a country that could feel increasingly hostile to those who believed in the dream that the country had long represented.

Robert Redford, iconic actor, director and champion of independent film, dies at 89

Redford’s innate sense of justified righteousness also came in handy during the rare times when the actor was called upon to play villains – opportunities to subvert expectations that the actor seemed to delight in. Say what you will of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become, but its overwhelming cultural dominance might all be worth it for the chance to watch Redford play a scummy political operative in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Even when saddled with expository-heavy dialogue and co-stars of questionable capabilities, Redford could deliver a performance that coiled around the audience with deceptive ease.

For many actors of his generation, dominating the screen time and again would have been enough. But Redford never made things easy for himself, and quickly he split his attentions between acting and filmmaking. His directorial debut, 1980’s Ordinary People, was seismic in its heavy yet nuanced emotional wallops, earning Redford the Oscar for Best Director, a rookie-of-the-year confirmation like no other. Like performing, directing simply came naturally to Redford, and that early confidence boost helped propel Redford to helm eight more features – some instant hits (1992’s A River Runs Through It, 1994’s Quiz Show), some admirable (1998’s The Horse Whisperer), and some misfires that surely stung but failed to dent his reputation (2000’s The Legend of Bagger Vance, 2007’s Lions for Lambs).

And yet it’s Redford’s dedication to films he never participated in – and to filmmakers he would never work with – that sets his legacy apart from his contemporaries. As the founder of the nonprofit Sundance Institute, which has run the annual Sundance Film Festival and its many year-round activities since 1981, Redford single-handedly changed the face of American film.

That might sound like hyperbole, but consider the singular talents whose careers were born thanks to a single Sundance premiere: Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, Joel and Ethan Coen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Catherine Hardwicke, Richard Linklater, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Coogler, Kelly Reichardt, Wes Anderson, and so many more.

Were it not for Redford’s dedication to spotlighting independent filmmakers working outside the studio system – a system that he benefited so greatly from, but one whose access to its inner workings gave him the understanding of its confines and limitations – moviegoers the world over would have been robbed of countless cinematic visions. And while the U.S. film landscape has experienced radical shifts since the days that Redford began his quest in the mountains of Park City, Utah – starting in 2027, the January festival will move to Boulder, Colo., with so many festival attendees (including filmmakers) being priced out of the festival’s original home – the filmmaker’s fiercely indie spirit lives on.

Sink or swim together – that’s the way the film industry, in Redford’s eyes, should work. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it should be.