Robert Redford has died | Hacker News Reader

Robert Redford has died

nytimes.com

462 pointsuptown145 comments

"Sneakers" is such an entertaining watch for anyone that's never seen it. Well worth your time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/

He more or less was everywhere when I was growing up in the 1970's. "The Sting", "All the President's Men", etc. "The Great Waldo Pepper" was often on T.V.

"Jeremiah Johnson" though is still a favorite of mine. Got me into blackpowder.

And surprised later when watching The Twilight Zone and he turned up as "Death": https://youtu.be/9tfyv4BZRug

And, of course, "Three Days of the Condor", ending in the middle of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen".

Great scene, thank you for sharing!

Jeremiah Johnson is one of my favorites of all time. Such a great movie. "You'll do well, pilgrim"

Don't forget Three Days of the Condor[0] in which he's supported by a fabulous cast as well.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor

“Spy Game” is one of be one of the best spy films I’ve seen in terms of recruiting and handling assets.

Thanks for the recommendation. If you want realistic, modern spy show, I strongly recommend “Le Bureau Des Legendes”. I heard there’s an American remake, which probably makes it over-the-top for their audience, but the original is top-tier TV.

Plus one on the French, "The Bureau". Amazing series on spy-craft, double-think, and of course the risks.

Thanks for the rec! Will check it out. While a bit of a general bend (and not Robert Redford), I also felt Andor was a terrific portrayal of spycraft— the asset recruiting/handling, opsec, counter intelligence, etc.—and would still hold up equally well if extracted from SW and dropped into a contemporary setting.

"My voice is my passport. Verify me"

"Alexa, buy me three tons of toilet paper"

Little riff on that:

I miss when Amazon had the "Dash" buttons, it was better than voice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Dash

Those buttons were fun and cheap to hack for your own projects too!

HimynameisWernerBrandeismyv-click

"Please speak more slowly"

My first thought when I saw his name. I love many of his movies but Sneakers has to be my favorite!

It's such a "old fashioned" kind of film, the key scenes are so memorable.

No more secrets, Marty.

Seatec Astronomy

I'm interested in all kinds of astronomy.

Where we are going we don't need roads.

A friend of mine that was in Desert Storm taught me this. Of course, he was on the other side

One of my favourites. Great cast.

Kingsley and Redford on the roof: "There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information"

They're not on the roof for that scene; they're in his office, using the computer room's air conditioning as a sound mask (and using a Cray Y-MP as a bench). While the movie takes some very early-90s liberties with technology (especially the scene where they use the chip), it's remarkably respectful of hacking -- there's a stronger emphasis on social engineering then the purely technical, and my "head canon" is that the chip itself is a quantum chip capable of breaking any then-known encryption.

No, the roof: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk0Mzci2Sks

I'm thinking of the scene where they talk about the corrupting influence of money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifJMFqSV7ic

I love the way you confidently relied on your 80s film trivia memory to correct someone online without double checking. Im not being sarcastic its kinda cool.

Sneakers is from 1992.

Thus the “late 80’ies”…

early nineties ?

Extreeemely late eighties

Nineteen eighty twelve.

1992, the year that was late to the 80's

The 80s ended in September 1991. One week “Use Your Illusion” was released, which meant it was still the 80s then. The following week “Nevermind” was released, so obviously the 90s started sometime during that week.

This is terrific, I’m totally stealing this line to drop at my next dinner party.

We have already established that not double checking is kinda cool.

For the first time in 10 years it looks like one of my comments has been flagged. And it was about 80s trivia. I love this crazy world.

Anyone interested in learning more about social engineering should check out "The Art of" books by legendary hacker Kevin Mitnick.

Or… sticking to the theme…

The Old Man and the Gun

… another great film by Redford, about an elderly man who leans on his charisma and confidence to rob banks. Based on a true story.

Or... The Sting!

Back when Social Engineering meant wearing a hell of a suit and dodging the 'Bunco Squad'. All the elements are there: Greed, Scarcity, a sense of urgency, all legitimised by the leveraging of Social "proof".

If it was remade today there'd be a good chance Redford would find Newman's character down on his luck running facebook ads for crypto scams featuring AI videos of prominent celebrities.

So much so that it arguably accelerated the introduction of the Clipper Chip by unimaginative spooks only a year later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

For me the biggest Hollywood liberty taken is the beautiful ASCII Colourized UIs for federal agencies and ATC that they reveal with the decrypt!

> it's remarkably respectful of hacking

This is one of my favorite things about the movie, and why I always recommended it to my security friends.

It's also remarkably respectful of Bay Area geography -- they got the major bridges right. None of that Dustin Hoffman going the wrong way on the Bay Bridge stuff.

Seeing as this is considered remarkable by some people, it makes me want to watch a compilation of all movie scenes that were an insult to Bay Area geography. There should be a channel someplace, where each video is a compilation of a different city/landmark.

Totally, one of my dogs favorite stops on our walk is that plaza where they met the "NSA agents"

Only a handful of scenes were shot in the Bay Area:

- https://filminglocations.fandom.com/wiki/Sneakers

- https://www.set-jetter.com/ontheset/sneakers

> breaking any then-known encryption

(Also from fuzzy memory) Any then-known Western encryption. The chip was supposedly useless on Soviet/Russian encryption techniques, thus emphasizing who exactly the chip was meant to be used against.

It’s also one of the few hacking movies that stands up - assume ‘the box’ is a prototype quantum computer. Better yet assume it has a production process with such a high failure rate they’ve been churning these out for years just to produce a single working instance.

just a few days ago I had an idea for a shirt and sent it to a designer on fiverr. I was very pleased with what I got back. "Secrets are Power" was my nod to one of my favorite movies Sneakers! Rest in Piece Mr. Redford.

http://bit.ly/3Ip3tr3 link to the shirt if you want to look at it. there is a message encoding in the background.

I think it is one of the more realistic hacker movies. You can read also about Leonard Adleman's participation in the movie[1]. Adleman is the A in RSA.

Also, Lawrence (Larry) Lasker[2] was the writer of Sneakers AND War Games!

[1] https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lasker

Oh my. Those two movies always had a similar vibe to me and now I know why.

Haven't rewatched since it was first released. As an audio person I was particularly impressed with a scene whereby someone who was locked in a trunk determined their location by remembering the sound made by bumps on a specific road. Is that right? Or am I thinking of the last time I was kidnapped?

The sounds that cars make over the different bridges iirc. Cool scene!

You've got it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuIheGaiFLM

"Remind me to make you an honorary blind person."

This tends to be a favorite scene of Bay area nerds. There's not too many other Hollywood mentions of the San Mateo Bridge.

I think you are right. What did it sound like? The road? When you were in the trunk, the last time you were kidnapped, what did the road sound like?

There are moments when I’m driving over the San Mateo Bridge and I instantly think about this movie.

Any time I'm visiting and am on the Embarcadero. It's funny watching it, you can still see workers in the background cleaning up the median which used to have a freeway over it from the '89 quake.

Going to a cocktail party?

Why, yes. At the reservoir.

RIP Mr. Redford and Sidney Poitier.

Not to mention one of the most ridiculously stacked casts — it's incredible how many greats are in it. And it's one of my favorite hacking movies of all time.

I first watched it back when it came out. At the time I was living in a different country and San Francisco was just another US city to me. I just happened to re-watch it yesterday (it still holds up) for the first time since moving to the bay area.

It was interesting hearing the names of the locations and bridges that previously meant nothing to me (except the golden gate).

It's free to watch on youtube at the moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9XYQBBIJ4

I saw it as a kid and it was one of the movies that inspired me to get into software.

I hope there are still movies being made today that inspire the next generation of programmers. It feels like it's all Marvel now.

Sneakers is one of the main factors that got me into computing from Mathematics. Cryptography was new to the main stream when this movie came out. RSA was big time. Spy Games, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and especially Jeremiah Johnson all bad ass.

Someone released this a few years back.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36799776 https://github.com/bartobri/no-more-secrets

Interestingly, it has held up quite well, too: outside of the occasional bit of old tech sticking out here and there, the whole thing could be set in 2025 with a minimum of updating. The problem the MacGuffin solves, the methods for conducting their various heists, even the inclusion of the post-Soviet Russians as a player are all still valid today.

Just FYI for anyone that wants to watch Sneakers, it's free right now on YouTube. And no ads if you have YT Premium/Music.

"All is Lost" (2013) funny enough got me interested in offshore sailing in my late teens.

Incredible performance by Redford, first film that really left an impression on me. There is only one or two lines of dialogue in the entire film.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-is-lost-2013

Came here to say this. Incredible movie.

I even got the protagonists watch (seiko Pepsi)

I loved this very much, and I've seen it a couple of times. Together with "Touching the Void" it ranks high on my list of the best survival pictures ever made, a specific genre I enjoy very much.

And it's very intimate. 106 minutes of just you the viewer, and Robert Redford. I might just rewatch it tonight. It feels fitting.

I got into mountaineering (movies) after reading Into Thin Air, about the disaster atop Mount Everest in 1996. Haunting story, fantastic book.

For real life lost at sea stories, there’s “438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea” telling the story of fisherman Salvador Alvarenga that spent more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean.

Not as long but similarly lost at sea, crossing the Atlantic in a life raft: "Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea" by Steven Callahan.

How interesting, there is another movie called "438 days", although in Swedish, which is about two Swedish journalists imprisoned in Ethiopia for espionage. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/438_dagar (Swedish)

If you love survival stories, checkout “Deep Survival “ that analyzes why some people survive and others don’t. Brilliant

I do think this is one of Redford's very best films. A lot of detractors make the mistake of assuming the character is intended to represent an expert & experienced sailor, leading to a complete misread of the story. It is possible to be both clever & unwise.

Edit: Screenplay link! https://thescriptsavant.com/movies/All_Is_Lost.pdf

my favorite performance of his! its a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. so many anxiety inducing moments, especially for those who fear the ocean

This is not a film, this is a lesson to all ocean sailors. When I travelled along the Pacific in 2009 we were prepared for the cases that happened in the movie. I have dreamt about them and then I watched them.

> There is only one or two lines of dialogue in the entire film.

Technically speaking with only one actor in the entire film there can be no dialog. These were couple of expletives. I love the movie -- it is so different.

Redford's Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival was a monumental contribution, changing the film industry for the better, a boon to indie filmmakers. IMO this is Redford's most important legacy.

This is so essential now especially as Hollywood has become more consolidated and corporate.

I heard the late Roger Ebert once say that Robert Redford had done more for independent cinema than anyone.

Indeed. I read that movies like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Napoleon Dynamite" got their break at Sundance.

Quentin Tarantino went through Sundance Lab while preparing Reservoir Dogs. There is some test footage of him and Steve Buscemy he shot there reciting some dialogue.

He also met Terry Gilliam there, and he always recounts this first meeting fondly, so the festival led him into meeting an important mentor.

Outside of Quentin, Paul Thomas Anderson, a lot of people are called the Sundance Generation. Sundance changed cinema.

Yup! He was a huge part in giving so many filmmakers a shot at becoming household names. Not a lot of people know about this.

I'm sad about his passing. I've always been such a huge fan of his.

I just realized this is probably from the sundance kid in some way

Had Redford passed some 30 years ago, your remarks would have been true. By the early 2000s, Sundance became nothing more than a marketplace for a formulaic film type (quirky dramedies with offbeat characters) that big studios (a.k.a. Hollywood) would bid over. Sundance ultimately commodified "independent film".

I used to feel some sort of strange reassurance whenever I'd see him on screen, in any kind of film, in any kind of role.

Being an espionage lover, of course, Spy Game will have a special place; then there's him playing Sundance Kid, but I remember him for Out of Africa and The Way We Were. I know many might say, 'But he was not central in them'; I'd say that he was. And no, not the only central role. That's how I remember him and these films. What masterpieces of films, and how beautifully he played his roles in these; and the things he stood for.

His performance in Spy Game is really great — recently rewatched it. The way he captured so well the idea that younger generations think they've got it all figured out — but the old hats still have some tricks up their sleeve.

Operation Dinner Out - is something I call team dinners in the company calendar at work - a nod to that movie.

If you like RR and spy films then definitely check “Three Days of the Condor”

Unfortunately I feel that while it's very well shot and paced, the gendered interplay from RR and his co-star feels a little iffy in the modern day - particularly since the romantic sub-plot requires so much suspension of disbelief. So much so that the main characters in the Elmore Leonard spy-comedy "Out of Sight" ridicule it.

Apparently, as per Reddit, the director kept wanting her to look more scared in her initial scenes; explaining the horror of being kidnapped and imprisoned in her own home by a strange man. She kept pleading "But it's Robert Redford"!

If you like the espionage and unique feel of films of that era though, you can't do much better than Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation', starring a wonderfully morose Gene Hackman. A very worthy Palme D'Or winner in '74.

Fred Zinnemann's 'The Day of the Jackal' in '73 is also a high-point for espionage-thrillers of the decade.

These are great but day of the jackal is more of a police procedural than a spy thriller.

There is a whole sub-genre called Paranoid thrillers of the 70s. Some more:

- Marathon Man

- Klute

- All the president’s men

- The Parallax View

- The China Syndrome

- Capricorn One

- The Boys from Brazil

- Z

- Blow Out

Completely agree with everything you've written. I probably missed my chance to enjoy Three Days of the Condor by not watching it earlier in life because - to me - it doesn't hold up to viewing through a modern lens. The interplay between the two leads is wild, the sex scene almost plays as a rape with the way she's acting.

They really don't make them like Robert Redford anymore — truly one of my favorite actors who could elevate anything he was in. 89 is an impressive run — especially given how sharp he was right up til the end.

If you've never seen his movies, you can basically pick them at random and you'll find a good one. But All the President's Men is one of my favorite films of all time.

Last few minutes of Three Days Of The Condor[1] should be required watching for everyone.

[1] https://youtu.be/vZNnDiDSUiI?si=6hLz0X00uDhfVdPE

Purely in terms of watching great actors at work, I think the penultimate scene is more striking. It sets up the excellent scene you shared rather well, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voPmfT09jlg

MvS a master of the art here. Completely convincing, never over acting. Always left me wanting to know more about how Joubert came to be.

Yes. And credit where it's due when it comes to Redford: he is the star but nevertheless he doesn't try to steal back the scene from Max, and the result is amazing.

(I'm not a film nerd, but perhaps some credit is due to whoever edited that scene as well. The end of the scene hits pretty hard.)

Any actor with even 10% of successful movies that Redford would be considered an "A" lister. Thanks for all the entertainment for 5 decades, Robert. RIP.

https://archive.ph/i00mB

Ordinary People, Redford's directorial debut, is one of my favourite movies. A movie that deceptively appears simple but that is wonderfully emotionally deep with great performances from the entire cast. I must give it a rewatch.

Redford was an excellent human off screen. Applied his fame and resources in meaningful ways. His biography is worth a read.

RIP "Wonderboy" ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Natural_(film)

"Alright, Hobbes...knock the cover off the ball."

War games, was one of the first Western movies appeared in USSR at time of "global discharge" (or better translation global easing), it was so fresh wind.

I have seen movies with Redford later, but unfortunately, I just now got info about connection of Redford with War games.

RIP Great man.

I found the Watchmen HBO series alternate universe version of Redford as “liberal version of president Ronald Reagan” a fascinating thought experiment

Not just that, but the wholly plausible concept of "Redfordations" - a fictional U.S. law establishing reparations for descendants of racial injustices in the form of lifetime tax exemptions - seemed very on-brand for the man and his legacy.

this gets me everytime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDnrFBpsBk

RIP RR

I knew which scene that was before I clicked the link.

What a wonderful narration.

Him at 89 was more handsome than me in my 20's.

To be fair, you're better looking now.

ಠ_ಠ

Why thank you, the ladies dont seem to mind ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Redford

His directing skills were legend too: Quiz Show, The Legend of Bagger Vance, A River Runs Through It, ....

Rest easy "Sundance Kid".

"Why you crazy -- the fall will probably kill you!" [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR7XB0VBPM

Think you used enough dynamite, there, Butch?

What a loss. Sneakers inspired me to pursue my dream of being a penetration tester.

I first discovered his acting via a long forgotten torrent site.

I used to go onto Suprnova[0] and sort by "most seeded" and alongside a sea of pornography, up filtered gems like the 1992 cult classes we all know and love. (As well as, at the time, a lot of really got big beat electronic albums, but the uhn tiss tiss is a conversation for another thread.)

I had been a big gamer growing up, but found that folks weren't growing out of toxicity, and migrated to being a film/tv geek. More art galleries, less LAN parties, that sort of thing.

I guess he's jammin' revolvers into Russian dude's backs at the opera in heaven now...

I haven't found another film that captures the feeling of blowing past building security, the front desk, and the CEO's secretary to inform them if you were the guy who'd been threatening their NGO, they'd be dead -- and oh, by the way, here's a list of the systems I could own without setting foot in your building.

Nowadays, you're weird if you socialize offline and eschew social media, but back in the day being a hacker was not considered cool or interesting -- if anything, we were scary.

Truly a film before it's time, truly a loss.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprnova.org

130 comments and no one mentions "The Sting"? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nAIb_J9T5M

Fully agree - such a great movie: absolutely flowing, entertaining, fantastic characters, nice colors. That together with "Three days of the Condor" is what I immediately though of when I heard the news, but so far only one of the newspapers/sites I read has mentioned both of them..., weird :o| Am I just getting too old (respectively, are articles being written by too junior people?)?

Oh wow, last night I was just listening to his commentary on "All the President's Men" (which came up a couple of weeks ago here on HN when we were talking about ratfucking).

Great movie, great commentary.

The introduction to a river runs through it is an interesting read. I never realized how much creative influence Redford had over the production of the movie until I read it a few months ago.

I still re-watch Spy Game every now and then, classic Redford acting.

"Lions for Lambs" is widely panned, but I think spoke to a particular subset of people interested in doing over talking. RIP to a great.

Sad. He was so prolific and such a good actor. I liked a lot of his films. Two in particular were The Last Castle and Spy Game.

#SETEC_ASTRONOMY

https://archive.md/QlkSj

”All Is Lost” is great too. Robert Redford, no dialogue at all in the film.

Spy Game is my favourite movie from him. Rest in peace Robert!

RIP. The Last Castle.

Jeremiah Johnson and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Epic films

RIP Bob Redford, your movies will stay with us forever.

Oh no - we’ve lost a great defender of democracy and the environment. Throughout his personal life and professional film career, he consistently sought to spotlight government, corporate, and military-industrial corruption while shining a light on the importance of democracy. The world has lost a remarkable person!

Do yourself a favor and watch some of his most important movies that represented his ideology "Truth", "Brubaker", "Sneakers" or "Spy Game".

Two remarkable people in less than one week. Damn shame, but more will pick up their gauntlets and run with them!

Who is the other?

Yes, Ricky Hatton the popular British former boxing world champion affectionately known as “The Hitman” was a beloved figure in boxing.

FYI, I think the term you're slightly misusing is "running the gauntlet", which means to face a difficult trial, usually in public. Although you may be mixing it up with "to pick up the gauntlet" (but not run with it), which means to accept a challenge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_the_gauntlet https://www.dictionary.com/browse/throw-down-the-gauntlet

...and a river runs through it.

Kobe.

I know we live in an age where if someone dies, you cannot criticize him, but Redford is famous for the blackballing of James Woods. I vehemently disagree with Woods' politics but that shouldnt preclude him from employment. Its very clear people like Redform made sure people like Woods were targeted for their political and personal views. Redford was a huge Hollywood power, not just this 'kindly grandpa' actor but a power-player of the highest order. Redford ran a major film and television production company and as such decided, personally, who to hire or fire on his own whim.

Robert Redford is also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, so getting on his bad-side is strongly career-effecting. People lived in fear of getting on this guy's bad side.

On set, he sounds like the typical Hollywood nightmare with famous clashes with his costars and directors. Arthur Laurents, the writer of The Way We Were, described Redford as an "ego maniac" and control freak for his on-set behaviors.

I say this as a leftist, but "The Truth" is liberal catering-to, and whitewashes Rathers's lack of due diligence in the Bush document, which even to a largely uniformed person like me thought, "Uh isnt that a modern font?" Dan Rather's rush to to this story is not a 'victim' but the failure of basic journalism. I dont think Rather should have resigned, but the idea that's he's this kind-hearted innocent, as the film mostly portrays him as, is just dishonesty. Rather saw money and fame in breaking a big story, and ran with it without much care.

Shrug, I've always seen his PR as very heavily manufactured and played towards the NYTimes and Variety and Sundance crowd in a very targeted way. And it worked, Redford died with an estate worth at least $200m. Capitalism gonna capitalism I guess, but the reality is Redford was quite the vindictive partisan who used his wealth and power against his perceived political enemies and whitewashed some questionable people.

The article also describes him as the kind of environmentalist who makes my eyes roll - a rich person principally concerned with making sure their local area looks untouched and beautiful so they can ride their Ferrari through it.

That's a good point. I have less criticism there because there is potential for someone like that to affect national or global policy and the individual can't often do much on a persona consumption level. Like I dont want to nitpick someone for driving a corvette or using paper cups. Its not like driving an SUV or running the dishwasher daily is so much better. If he lived a very modest life, would anything be different environmentally? Maybe slightly less carbon out there? The same way I dont think reusing straws is helping for me.

But the carbon footprint of the jetset crowd is significant and worth pointing out. And, yes, how a lot of it is things like protecting wealthy-coded wildlife touristy-type areas in California and such and less effort in cleaning up factories in Alabama or India and such. Or how as a capital owning class person, he negotiated against the working class with his productions, and as such the dynamics that make Alabama and India poor, the capitalistic effect of driving down wages and the political power of these working people who want reform, well, he's part of the problem there too. He can't be both 'the boss' and a worker at the same time.

And the zero effort for him and his cohorts to fly first class instead of private jet or take a regular boat and not a mega yacht or other massive carbon producers.

But his behavior on set, his bias in "The Truth,' and his hiring policies are entirely his choice and can be made nearly entirely meritorious. He simply decided to not act meritorious.

What evidence is there that Redford blackballed James Woods? I know Woods claims he's been blacklisted, but is this true, and where is the evidence it was Redford?

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