Bye Bob

 Sadly, my wife and I came up with a bit a few years back that pretty much destroys every Twilight Zone Episode. At the end, when we find out that things were not as they appear and Rod Serling has given us all some nasty twist (i.e. they were on the Earth the whole time) the soundtrack announces this trick with the Sad Trombone sound. 

It's a pretty good bit. 

Unfortunately, this trace of levity is what stood in my way from completely appreciating the moment I learned that Robert Redford had died. I was quickly going through my mental list of performances by the Founder of the Sundance Institute when I had a full and visceral memory of the episode of Mister Serling's sci-fi series in which Robert Redford played a wounded policeman stuck outside an elderly woman's door, begging her to let him in. After much back and forth, she lets him in, confiding that she has been staving off her own death for many years now and is afraid of being tricked by the grim reaper. And wouldn't you know it, the wounded cop turns out to be the embodiment of death, come to take the old woman to her final reward. 

That one stuck with me as much as Barefoot In The Park, or Downhill Racer, but not as much as Butch Cassidy or The Sting. Probably more than The Way We Were or The Great Gatsby, but never more than The Great Waldo Pepper, which I first saw with my family at Radio City Music Hall on Easter Sunday 1975. And then there was Ordinary People, in which Mister Redford didn't even appear. He just won an Oscar for Best Director. That one hits differently for the film buff in me. Bob beat out Martin Scorsese who directed Raging Bull that same year. Apparently he was pretty good as a director too. 

Robert Redford's Sundance Foundation helped launch the careers of such diverse talents as Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, and Steven Soderbergh. All that time as a movie star paid off big in terms of the influence he was able to wield in the world of independent film. Movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Donnie Darko, and The Blair Witch Project all got their premieres at Sundance. 

And somewhere in there, he even found himself playing a part in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

He stomped on the cinematic terra, and he will be missed. Aloha, Robert Redford, you made movies better.