2 Later Steve Bernhardt, Redford’s old friend: Interview with Steve Bernhardt, July 2, 1997.
3 At one point, Rayfiel sent: Among notes appended to the script for The Electric Horseman, in Sydney Pollack’s script library at Mirage Productions, Paramount Studios, Los Angeles.
4 “The present version is too encumbered”: Note on discarded script draft of The Electric Horseman in Sydney Pollack’s script files at Mirage Productions, Paramount Studios, Los Angeles.
5 “When I was a kid”: Handwritten notes by Sydney Pollack, appended to the script of The Electric Horseman in Sydney Pollack’s script files at Mirage Productions, Paramount Studios, Los Angeles.
6 Never missing a marketing moment: Ray Stark interview with Sydney Pollack, September 1, 1995.
7 Redford had been prompted by author-activist Peter Matthiessen: Premiere, April 1992, 29.
8 Murton’s story was every bit as sinister: Thomas O. Murton and Joe Hyams, Accomplices to the Crime: The Arkansas Prison Scandal (New York: Grove Press, 1969).
9 Rafelson admitted to having made Head: Interview with Stephen Farber, The New York Times, Arts section, February 16, 1997.
10 “I liked that complete disrespect”: Interview with Bob Rafelson, online at www.filmfestivals.com/cannes98/starsus7.htm.
11 In widely reported accounts, Rafelson decked a senior Fox executive: Interview with Stuart Rosenberg, June 7, 2000.
12 On a bright winter’s afternoon, Stan and Mary Alice Collins: Interview with Stan Collins, June 1, 1996.
13 Eisner, according to his autobiography: Michael Eisner, Work in Progress: Risking Failure, Surviving Success (New York: Hyperion, 1999), 94–95, 102.
14 Moore heard nothing for a month: Interview with Mary Tyler Moore, September 21, 1996.
15 “Bob understood everything”: Ivan Butler, interview with Tim Hutton, Films and Filming 331 (April 1982).
16 To Donald Sutherland, such “mean-ass economy”: Interview with Donald Sutherland, conducted by Francis Feighan, August 1981.
17 Moore, battling the ravages of incipient alcoholism: Interview with Mary Tyler Moore, September 26, 1996.
18 “I just didn’t think I was going to see this, but I’m no less grateful”: Text of Robert Redford’s Academy Award acceptance speech from March 31, 1981, transcribed in Red Book, a fanzine published by Trudy Hoffman, June 1981.
19 In The Soul’s Code, Hillman implies: James Hillman, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling (New York: Warner, 1997).
18. Sundance
1 Michelle Satter, introduced to Redford: Interview with Michelle Satter, June 19, 1996.
2 The first Sundance Institute lab took place: Sundance Institute literature, including “Sundance June 1982 Program,” with an introduction by Redford and Frank Daniel and a full listing of advisers and sponsors (board of trustees: Redford, Robert “Reg” Gipson, Saul Bass, Marjorie Benton, Ian Calderon, Ian Cumming, Frank Daniel, Moctesuma Esparza, Robert Geller, Dr. Robert Gray, Alan Jacobs, Howard Klein, Karl Malden, Mary McFadden, John McMillian, Mike Medavoy, Victor Nunez, Wayne Owens, Sydney Pollack, Annick Smith, Anthony Thomopoulos, Claire Townsend, Robert Townsend and George White); also “Sundance Institute Filmmakers and Screenwriters Laboratory, May 29–June 27, 1996,” with an introduction by Redford and a full listing of advisers and sponsors (board of trustees: Redford, Gary Beer, Glenn Close, Jake Eberts, Ted Field, Carlos Fuentes, Robert E. Gipson, George Gund, Steven Haft, Michael Kuhn, Pat Mitchell, Michael Ovitz, Sydney Pollack, Tom Rothman, Bradford Smith, Brandon Tartikoff, Denzel Washington, Alonzo Watson Jr., Richard Weinberg, Walter Weisman, James Wiatt, Hume Cronyn [emeritus], Irene Diamond [emeritus], George White [emeritus], Sundance archive.
The selection process for the first lab was by invitation from the first set of creative and technical advisers. Only one person, Claire Townsend, made the project selections, though this process was altered in years to come. The advisers were Victor Nunez (director of Gal Young ’Un), Alan Jacobs (former director of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers), George White, Claire Townsend (vice president for production at Twentieth Century–Fox), Robert Geller (PBS producer), Moctesuma Esparza (producer of La Raza), Frank Daniel (chairman of the film division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts), Sterling Van Wagenen and Robert Redford.
Of the ten projects chosen in the first year, records of nine remain on file. After the first year, projects were chosen from a wider pool of random submissions, which, within ten years, numbered in the thousands. Among the first season’s projects were El Norte (Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas), Learning to Fall (Ann Beattie), St. Elmo’s Fire (David Shicklele), The Giant Joshua (John and Denise Earle), The Trials of Daniel Boone (Steve Wax and Steve Channing), The Man Who Killed the Deer (Larry Littlebird), Ghost Dancers (Barry Pritchard), Gestation in the Tombs (Pablo Figueroa), and South Bronx Drama (Jon Alpert).
3 By the standard that would shortly develop: Interview with Robert Redford, June 9, 1999. The theater lab program was always of equal importance in Redford’s eyes. “I’m so glad I was in theater in the fifties, in that fading era when it was all about storytelling and bodies in the space,” he says. “You learn so much about telling the tale, and that’s critical, of course, for movies. At Sundance, I saw theater workshopping as a key activity. It bled into the film work, and that was as I wanted it.”
The theater labs, running through July of each year, became very productive. Over a five-year period at the start of the millennium, twenty-five projects nurtured at the July labs went into full theatrical production across the country, including Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
4 “The trouble with Bob”: Interview with Reg Gipson, September 16, 1995.
5 Shortly after the first lab, Brent Beck: Interview with Brent Beck, September 11, 1995.
6 At the time, Pollack reported himself uplifted: Gerald Peary, “Sundance,” American Film, October 1981, 47–51.
7 Redford had already engaged Hope Moore: Interview with Gary Beer, October 18, 1995.
8 The IRM was officially launched: John Aloysius Farrell, “Westernizing with Robert Redford,” The Denver Post Magazine, December 1, 1985.
9 A flood of creative ideas flowed: Interview with Barry Levinson, March 6, 1999.
10 Wells had been shot in the back of the head: Kirk Mitchell, “Celebrity Link Drew Global Attention to Killing,” The Denver Post, March 16, 2008.
11 Only the heroic acts of four passersby: Provo Herald, March 9, 1985.
12 Redford’s aim with the rewrites: Sidney Lumet, Making Movies (New York: Vintage, 1996), 39.
13 But it was Judith Thurman’s 1982 biography: Judith Thurman, Isak Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982).
14 Blixen’s personal writings suggest otherwise: Isak Dinesen, Letters from Africa 1914–1931, ed. Frans Lasson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 103–430.
15 Kurt gathered enough from Judith: Errol Trzebinski, Silence Will Speak: A Study of the Life of Denys Finch Hatton and His Relationship with Karen Blixen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
16 Reitman worried about his appropriateness: Interview with Ivan Reitman, conducted by Francis Feighan, June 1988.
19. One America?
1 Recently, the programs had been run by Susan Lacey: Interview with Sterling Van Wagenen, September 29, 1997.
2 For Berkeley-born Nichols, the journey to Milagro: John Nichols, A Fragile Beauty (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1987), 1.
3 New meeting rooms for lab students: Interview with Ian Calderon, June 17, 1996.
4 Redford’s greatest ally in this redesign: Interview with Jamie Redford, December 16, 1998.
5 At the following Canyon de Chelly conference: The New York Times, June 25, 1984.
6 “The U.S.A and the U.S.S.R. are the two largest producers”: Draft of IRM statement, unsigned, marked “as delivered,” dated 1988. Sundance archive.
7 The Sundance symposium fores
hadowed: Interview with Bill Bradley, July 2, 1997.
8 The IRM’s demise became an issue of debate: Interview with Gary Beer, October 18, 1995.
20. Beyond Hurricane Country
1 “to discover life in film”: Elizabeth Ezra, ed., European Cinema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 169.
2 According to anonymous sources interviewed: Peter Biskind, “Robert Redford and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Sundance Institute,” Premiere, February 1991. Aljean Harmetz, “Sundance Film Festival Veers from Mainstream,” The New York Times, January 17, 1991.
3 Though Jamie had effectively diagnosed himself: Interview with Jamie Redford, April 2, 1998.
4 The industry still functioned as an elite club: Ron Base and David Haslam, The Movies of the Eighties (London: Macdonald, 1990), 207.
5 “[Mike] Nichols believes you should do”: Letter from Manny Azenberg, date illegible. Sundance archive.
6 A major investigative feature: Biskind, “Robert Redford and the Unfulfilled Promise.”
7 Ovitz could find no studio backing: Interview with Jake Eberts, March 22, 1998.
8 Charlie responded with a clever memo: Letter from Charles Redford to Robert Redford, November 26, 1988, Sundance archive.
9 It was Parkes and Lasker who’d pitched: Interview with Phil Alden Robinson, conducted by Francis Feighan, January 1993.
10 “The billionaire in my novel”: Jack Engelhard interviewed by Greg Sheffield, NewsBuster.org, published online March 23, 2006.
21. Delivering the Moment
1 “When a population is distracted by trivia”: Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (London: William Heinemann, 1985), 161.
2 Retired prosecuting attorney Joseph Stone: New York Post, March 8, 1995.
3 During the first five years of Eisner’s reign: Ron Base and David Haslam, The Movies of the Eighties (London: Macdonald, 1990), 220.
4 According to Dunne in his memoir: John Gregory Dunne, Monster: Living Off the Big Screen (New York: Random House, 1997), 31–32.
5 After Ordinary People, Redford stated emphatically: Sue Clarke, “The Redford Conference,” Photoplay, August 1976.
22. The Edge
1 By the mid-nineties almost half of all householders: www.marketingcharts.com.
2 IFC was a sister channel: Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, a subsidiary of Cablevision, the current owners of the Sundance Channel (since May 2008), originally owned Bravo, as well as the Independent Film Channel. In 2002 Rainbow sold Bravo to NBC (now NBC Universal) for $1.25 billion. Rainbow Media Web site.
3 “They were liberal in the worst sense”: Peter Biskind, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 121.
4 By the mid-nineties, the institute: Interview with Michelle Satter, June 18, 1996.
5 He wrote an emotional eulogy: Time, November 21, 1998.
6 “Seriousness, as Leonard Cohen says”: Songs from the Life of Leonard Cohen, BBC video documentary. Produced by Debbie Geller. Directed by John Archer (BBC Enterprises, 1988).
7 Sundance then suggested further truncation: Interview with Julie Mack, April 12, 1998.
8 Under Clinton, Republicans in Congress: HR 1745, proposing the protection of 1.8 million acres. The opposing green coalition’s proposed HR 1500 (protecting 5.7 million acres) was supported by Redford. League of Conservation Voters circular to the United States Senate, by Deb Callahan, President, March 13, 1996, regarding opposition to S 884, the Utah Public Lands Management Act, a precursor to HR 1745, Deseret News, September 29, 1995.
9 When President Clinton inaugurated a new national park: Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 888; “President Protects Utah Lands,” USA Today, September 20, 1996.
23. The Actor in Transit
1 Lurie had a reputation as an outspoken leftist: Bernard Weinraub, “Press: Hollywood Still Directs Its Coverage,” The New York Times, June 1, 1992.
2 On the phone to Terry Lawson: Article by Terry Lawson in the Detroit Free Press, October 19, 2001.
3 Redford’s antipathy toward the government: Op-ed by Robert Redford, Los Angeles Times, December 2, 2002, endorsing Vote Solar’s activities.
4 if the Bush administration had: “Annual Hot List,” Rolling Stone, August 30, 2001.
5 Miramax grew powerfully as a production entity: Peter Biskind, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 189–95; Laura M. Holson, “How the Tumultuous Marriage of Miramax and Disney Failed,” The New York Times, March 6, 2005.
6 Writer Walter Kirn’s observation: Walter Kirn, “The Two Hollywoods,” The New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1997.
24. Jeremiah’s Way
1 he announced the relaunch of the Sundance Cinema Centers: The Hollywood Reporter, August 1, 2006.
2 On its heels came another IRM-style venture: Debra DeHaney-Howard, “Mayors Discuss Climate Protection Solutions at Sundance Summit,” U.S. Mayor Newspaper, November 20, 2006.
3 In May 2008 the bombshell came: Brian Stelter, “Cablevision Unit Buys Sundance Channel,” The New York Times, May 8, 2008; Jacques Steinberg, “Redford Is to Keep His Mark on Channel,” The New York Times, July 1, 2008.
4 His personal life was never so serene: Interview with Amy Redford, January 14, 2009.
5 His movies had cumulatively earned almost $1 billion: Calculated from figures posted on boxofficemojo.com.
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The editions listed are those referred to during the preparation of this book.
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