‘The Sting’: The movie Robert Redford refused to watch
It isn’t out of the ordinary for an actor to leave their work at the door and refuse to watch a movie they’ve made once the cameras stop rolling, although it is unusual for somebody to have made an impact on cinema like Robert Redford to spend decades avoiding one of his crowning achievements.
Not only is he an Academy Award-nominated actor who emerged during the ‘New Hollywood’ era to become one of the industry’s leading lights before evolving into an elder statesman and icon of the industry, but he’s also an Oscar-winning director and accomplished filmmaker.
Redford has built up an impressive back catalogue as an actor, producer, and director, so it stands to reason that being so experienced in three different disciplines would make him more inclined to revisit the projects he’s been heavily involved in from either a performative or creative standpoint, whether days, weeks, months or even years after the fact.
That’s to say nothing of the legacy built by his founding of the Sundance Institute, which enshrined Redford in history as one of the most influential and important figures in modern independent cinema. He’s had his fingers in a lot of pies, but gaining those levels of visibility and knowledge clearly didn’t sway him to check out a genuine classic that succeeded on all fronts.
“I’ve always had self-doubt,” he admitted of his ongoing reluctance. “It’s one of the biggest demons of my life. I have enjoyed the advantages and the enormous opportunities by being successful in movies, but I have never really enjoyed the spotlight.” That’s fair enough, even if he was missing out by purposely avoiding one of the best things he’s ever been a part of in any capacity.
He shared the screen with one of his closest friends as they played the two lead roles, the film cleared a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office, earned ten Oscar nominations and won seven, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, with the soundtrack even reaching number one on the Billboard charts.
And yet, it wasn’t until 2004 that he finally saw it for himself. “It took me 31 years to actually see The Sting,” Redford confessed. “I could enjoy it in the sense that I was no longer looking at myself but the character on screen.”
Co-starring with Paul Newman in their second and final feature together after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the two A-listers play a pair of conmen seeking retribution against a Chicago crime boss to avenge the murder of a common acquaintance. The Oscars deemed it the best movie of 1973, and it’s comfortably one of the decade’s finest, a conversation Redford couldn’t have contributed to in good faith until more than 30 years down the line.
