Robert Redford often said that art would live on — beyond the grind of the film business, but tonight his spirit as both a trailblazer of independent cinema, and an environmentalist was emotionally celebrated by his peers, and his Sundance Film Festival alums at Celebrating Sundance Institute: A Tribute to Founder Robert Redford.
“My father didn’t like many galas, but I have a feeling he’d like this one” said his daughter and Sundance Institute Board of Trustees, Amy Redford.
The heartfelt evening for the Oscar winning director of Ordinary People unfolded over two acts, act one named “The Vision”
—Ethan Hawke (who received his fifth Oscar nomination for Blue Moon on Thursday) gave opening remarks. Though he didn’t specifically work with Redford, he auditioned for the multihyphenate for A River Runs Through It. He practiced a monologue down to the letter: he’d go to bed, only to wake up 15 minutes later to rehearse it. Upon meeting Redford, he was floored that the Oscar winner knew he was an Austin, TX native. After giving all his heart to Redford in the try-out, the director turned him down, telling Hawke “you did a brilliant job but you’re too young. But I want you to know that you’re going to have a wonderful career.” Redford stayed in Hawke’s life, showing up at $10/ticket NYC stage performances as well as clearing the world premiere of Before Sunrise at the Sundance Film Festival. “He championed other people, and as you get older, you realize, ‘Oh, he had his own family. He had his own work.’ The fact that he took the time to care for all of us is so meaningful,” said the Dead Poets Society thespian. Best advise Redford gave him: ““Stop wearing the cowboy hat. People will think you’re losing your hair.” Let the record show that Hawke showed up tonight sans ten-gallon.
—Woody Harrelson, who followed Hawke during the first phase of tonight’s ceremony, worked with Redford in 1992 on Indecent Proposal and admitted that he’s the only guy “I’d sell my wife to” echoing the pic’s premise (remember, Harrelson’s guy allows his wife, played by Demi Moore, to sleep with the multi-millionaire played by Redford in the Adrian Lynne directed sexual drama). The Cheers alum regaled how his mom showed up on set of Indecent Proposal squealing like a 16-year old in her fandom of Redford, who warmly received her.
“For some of you younger folks who didn’t live in the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s, it might be hard for you to understand what Robert Redford meant to my generation, or my mother’s generation. Robert Redford was a star in my firmament even before I dreamed of becoming an actor. He was part of my childhood, so imagine my unbridled euphoria when I got the chance to work with him. Naturally, my first call was to my mother. She’s terrified of flying, refuses to fly, but she got herself on a plane to see Robert Redford when I was filming with him, and I witnessed my mom become a 16-year-old schoolgirl who did everything but squeal as she approached him on the set. He was so sweet, he took the time to really talk with her. I’ll always be grateful for his generosity and his kindness. I never saw my mother so happy in her life. She was boiling over with joy — and lust.”
Harrelson then shared with the crowd at the Grand Hyatt Deer Valley that Congress was trying to pass a bill at one time to open up the Montana wilderness to mining and timber.
“I was trying to stop this bill and several times I asked Robert to call a senator who had been unreachable and intractable, and you can believe that senator took that call and changed his tune. Robert’s contribution to protecting the environment was part of what made him a truly great American,” said Harrelson.
Former Sundance programming director John Cooper remembered key moments in Sundance history in Park City, with a Thank You Note:
Dear Park City, thank you for letting us build state-of-the-art cinemas in your ballrooms, synagogue, yoga studios, libraries, tennis courts, woodshop, and a crown of glory, a big box store that morphed into The Ray. Thank you for the Eccles Theater that changed everything. Thank you for the Egyptian that rooted us in your history. Thank you for the Elks Lodge that was so f*cking cool, we used it for everything.
Dear Park City, thank you for putting up with our ever-changing leadership. Even Ken Brecher with his collection of onion rings pinned to his office wall. Dear Park City, thank you for helping us in crisis. When the electric power was cut to the Eccles Theater on opening night, we figured it out with minutes to spare. Risers collapsed in The Prospector, a ceiling fell in the Holiday. Babies were born, and a projectionist died, and we forged on. I think we even made it through half a dozen Park City mayors.
Dear Park City, thanks for keeping us safe crossing icy streets, and for keeping us safe in your restaurants when fights broke out between distributors. Thank you for not laughing at us for wearing the same bright-colored puffy coats. But you did make fun of us when we arrived in town all dressed in black; we forgive you for that. Volunteers and staff came from far away; volunteers and staff came from here. The Olympics came, Oprah came. Ruth Bader Ginsburg came. And when the Westboro Baptist Church showed up to shame us, it was Park City high school kids who stared them down and stood our ground. We bombed Kuwait in our opening night in 1991, and one dark night, Banksy left his mark. But what we will always remember fondly is the snow…and the snow…and more snow… and a women’s march in the snow!
In the best of times, we became us. Residents opened their homes and their hearts… The show always went on — here in Park City, here in Utah. Thank you.
In Act 2, named “The Legacy” Amy Redford presented the inaugural Robert Redford Luminary Award to Ed Harris and Gyula Gazdag. She said that the new trophy “is about light. In times of darkness, light is hope.” She called Papa “a beacon,” a guy who “would rather be sitting with a new filmmaker, and not imposing some oppressive answer, but asking critical questions…He was giving forward, it was an investment in the future of the world he wanted to live in. My dad wanted to fix what was wrong.” She called the Sundance alums, people whose spirits Redford lived on within.
Nia DaCosta remembered Redford as a mentor who proclaimed to her “You are a director” which sent her into the women’s room to cry.
Taika Waititi (who called Redford “Bob to me, not to you”) and world premiered such movies at Sundance as What We Do in Shadows and Hunt for the Wilderpeople had the last laugh tonight.
“The best thing I learned from the labs was never take notes, and that’s something I’ve carried with me for my entire life. There are a lot of stories about me and Bob, but we had a rule, we don’t talk about it, especially at galas like this. Not our secrets — not at galas! That was our rule. Whether it was running guns, or running nuns — that was funny this morning.”
The annual donors’ dinner award ceremony, typically pays homage to those in the Oscar race, read, Hamet director Chloe Zhao (whose latest film notched eight Oscar noms). Zhao was a member of the Sundance Institute lab alongside colleagues Ryan Coogler and Marielle Heller) and was bestowed with the Trailblazer award. Tessa Thompson bestowed the Vanguard Award for Fiction to her directing Hedda mentor Nia DaCosta (they workshopped the latter’s Little Woods at the Sundance Institute which world premiered at Tribeca). Hedda received noms from the Critics Choice, Independent Spirits among others. Ava Duvernay gave the Sundance Institute Vanguard Award for Non-Fiction to director Geeta Gandbhir, who is a double Oscar nominee this year for Best Feature Documentary for The Perfect Neighbor and the doc short film The Devil Is Busy.
