The Walker celebrates the career of Robert Redford as a director, actor, activist
Walker Art Center Announces Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary Dialogue and Retrospective Series
Robert Redford and Sundance Film Festival Retrospective Begins September 30; Walker Hosting Robert Redford Dialogue November 12
MINNEAPOLIS, August 2, 2016—The Walker Art Center retrospective and dialogue Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary, highlighting Robert Redford’s acting and directing achievements and the ongoing legacy of building the independent film movement through the Sundance Film Festival, will begin September 30 with repertory screenings and culminate in a dialogue between Robert Redford and film critic Amy Taubin on November 12. Tickets for the retrospective (with series passes available) go on sale to the general public August 16 at 11 am. Tickets to the Dialogue go on sale on September 30 at 11 am.
ROBERT REDFORD: INDEPENDENT/VISIONARY
September 30 – November 12, 2016
“The art of making a film and its content are far more interesting to me than the result or impact. Of course, you hope it has impact…I want an audience to be fascinated by the process of finding an answer, or finding out there isn't one.” —Robert Redford
The Walker celebrates the career of Robert Redford as a director, actor, activist, and leading advocate for independent cinema with its 2016 Dialogue & Retrospective Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary.
On Wednesdays, the retrospective will showcase Redford’s acting and directing achievements, including classics like George Roy Hill’s reinvention of the western Robert Redford, courtesy Mark Hom Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary 2 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Redford’s heartfelt, family melodrama Ordinary People.
The retrospective continues on weekends with a tribute to the legacy of Sundance Institute, which Redford founded. This series features extraordinary works of independent cinema including Charles Burnett’s phenomenal To Sleep with Anger, new classics such as the dynamic, musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, plus a first look at a film fresh from this year’s festival, Certain Women, with director Kelly Reichardt present.
The program culminates with a conversation between Robert Redford and film critic Amy Taubin, one of the 20th century’s leading important writers about independent cinema. Redford began his career in theater then television before moving onto feature films; he emerged as a major star in 1969 with the release of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, his first on screen collaboration with Paul Newman. He went on to star in the political hits The Candidate and All The President’s Men, but it was the 1972 sleeper-hit Jeremiah Johnson, shot on location in Utah, that inspired a lifelong commitment to environmental activism and independent cinema.
In 1981, motivated by the potential of independent film, Redford set up Sundance Institute, which hosts Labs for artists as well as the Sundance Film Festival. For the last thirty-five years the Institute has continued to be a key platform for creative and underrepresented filmmakers.
The 1980s marked the beginning of Redford’s career as a director with his Academy Award winning drama Ordinary People and continued with films including Quiz Show. Both films will screen in the retrospective.
A visionary who has transformed American cinema, Redford continues to advocate for imaginative young filmmakers, new voices and environmental consciousness.
Redford #AtTheWalker
Series pass: $25 ($20 Walker members, students, and seniors)
BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID
Directed by George Roy Hill
Wednesday, October 5, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Note-perfect performances, a screenplay steeped in both nostalgia and a timely sense of insight, and anti-heroes you can't help but love.” —Empire
This riveting and charming tale mirrors the life of outlaws on the run, following two men who journey from Wyoming to Bolivia with hopes of executing a successful heist. Notable for its groundbreaking interpretation of the western and the indelible chemistry of its stars, the film shows the beauty and power of friendship in this portrait of a transforming West. Robert Redford stars in his breakout role as the Sundance Kid who follows the impulsive Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) through various schemes to strike it rich. 1969, 35mm, 110 minutes.
JEREMIAH JOHNSON
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Wednesday, October 12, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“A gritty, cinematic tall tale that resonates across geography, time, and the loneliest regions of the solitary heart” —The Austin Chronicle
Set against the sublime backdrop of Wasatch Mountain Range, Jeremiah Johnson follows a Mexican-American War veteran’s journey to forget his past and find rebirth in the Utah Mountains. Motivated by fantasies of rugged hermitage Redford’s Jeremiah Johnson quickly overcomes his wilderness ineptitude and, with the help of an unsentimental bear trapper (Will Geer), an Indigenous woman (Delle Bolton), and an adopted son (Josh Albee), navigates the complexities of survival and the precarious relationship of early frontiersmen with the native peoples. 1972, 35mm, 108 minutes.
DOWNHILL RACER
Directed by Michael Ritchie
Wednesday, October 19, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“…a portrait of a man that is so complete, and so tragic, that Downhill Racer becomes the best movie ever made about sports—without really being about sports at all.” —Roger Ebert
Written by acclaimed novelist James Salter, this visceral, high-speed character portrait (directed by Michael Ritchie), explores the drive and narcissism of David Chappellet (Robert Redford), an Olympic U.S. skier obsessed with qualifying for the Olympic games. David is called in by his coach, Claire (Gene Hackman), to fill the spot of an injured skier. As the race to qualify for the Olympics intensifies, so do the tensions between David, Claire, and the rest of the team. 1969, digital, 101 minutes.
QUIZ SHOW
Directed by Robert Redford
Wednesday, October 26, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Mr. Redford has made a rich, handsome, articulate film about a subject truly worth talking about. He captures the full scope of a fascinating, overlooked story, also adding something of his own…” —New York Times
A cutting, intelligent depiction of the rigging of the trivia game show Twenty One in the 1950s; Redford’s exquisite period drama captures the machinations underpinning reality television, squarely examining how race, class and prestige influence access to the American Dream. The film features terrific performances by Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro as golden socialite Charles Van Doren and his working class Twenty One competitor Herbert Stempel, who was bribed by producers to flub a question in order to boost ratings. 1994, 35mm, 133 minutes.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Directed by Robert Redford
Wednesday, November 2, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Redford adapts Judith Guest’s novel with sensitivity and insight” —Film Society Lincoln Center
Poignant and quietly intense, Redford’s Oscar-winning Ordinary People is an astute exploration of how a family copes with tragedy. Timothy Hutton stars as Conrad Jarrett, the guilt-ridden surviving son, whose relationship to his parents unravels after the eldest son dies in a boating accident. Remarkable and heartbreaking performances from Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler-Moore and Judd Hirsch complement the impressive score, screenwriting, and direction. 1980, DCP, 124 minutes.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
Directed by Alan J. Pakula
Friday, November 4, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“As riveting today as it was 20 years ago” —The Washington Post
Revisit the era of a smoky newsroom where fingers furiously pound on typewriters. Perhaps the most important film ever made about investigative journalism, this fictional retelling of Washington Post reporters Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) breaking the story of the Watergate scandal remains eternally relevant for its pointed examination of the underside of American politics. 1976, 35mm, 138 minutes.
THE CANDIDATE
Directed by Michael Ritchie
Saturday, November 5, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“…what viewers will most clearly remember long after the screen goes dark is Redford’s sympathetic portrayal of a good man seduced by the mere prospect of power.”—TIME Magazine
This timely portrait follows the fictional senate campaign of Bill McKay (Robert Redford), a young, passionate, and photogenic leftist who believes in “A Better Way”. Shot on location with political correspondents playing themselves and real politicians interacting with Redford’s fictional campaign, The Candidate feels more like a political documentary than a fiction film. Acting as a foreboding condemnation of the media’s role in the careful cultivation of politicians’ images, The Candidate depicts the tragic transformation of idealism turned political doublespeak. 1972, 35mm, 110 minutes.
ALL IS LOST
Directed by J.C. Chandor
Wednesday, November 9, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“An impressively spare, nearly dialogue-free stranded-at-sea drama starring a superb Robert Redford” —Variety
Trapped on a sailboat taking on water, a veteran mariner fights the elements to recover his sinking vessel. This thoughtful film is almost entirely without dialogue and instead relies on Redford’s ability to physically communicate the terrifying process of coming to terms with one's own mortality. 2013, 35mm, 106 minutes.
THE STING
Directed by George Roy Hill
Thursday, November 10, 7:30 pm, Free
Walker Cinema
“The Sting remains the definitive con artist comedy” —Telegraph
Winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture (1973), The Sting marks the reunion of duo Robert Redford and Paul Newman (Johnny Hooker and Henry Gondorff, respectively) as sleek conmen in 1930s Chicago who successfully outwit a rich gambler (Robert Shaw) responsible for killing their friend. 1973, DCP, 129 minutes.
WALKER DIALOGUE ROBERT REDFORD: INDEPENDENT/VISIONARY
Saturday, November 12, 8 pm
$45 ($36 members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
Join Robert Redford in conversation with leading film critic Amy Taubin for a conversation about Redford’s multi-faceted career as actor, activist, director, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival and Sundance Institute. A long-time advocate of independent cinema, Amy Taubin is a contributing editor for Sight & Sound and Film Comment and regularly contributes to Artforum.
Sundance Film Festival #AtTheWalker
Series pass: $25 ($20 Walker members, students, and seniors)
BLOOD SIMPLE
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Friday, September 30, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“A trailblazing masterpiece in any form” —AV Club
The Coens stunned the 1984 New York Film Festival audiences with their first feature film, funded partially by Minnesota investors. This atmospherically gothic film noir is the layered tale of a double-cross set in a dusty Texas town. The film also introduced Frances McDormand and featured M. Emmet Walsh in a spine-tingling role. 1984, 4K restoration, 99 minutes.
PARTING GLANCES
Directed by Bill Sherwood
Saturday, October 1, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“A film of subtle and elegant musicality” —Time Out London
A seminal work of the New Queer Cinema, Parting Glances was one of the first feature films to deal with the AIDS crisis. Set over the course of 24 hours in New York, the film follows Michael as he negotiates his relationship with his current boyfriend Robert, a preppy doctor bound for Africa, and Nick, his former-lover, an H.I.V positive musician, played by Steve Buscemi in his breakthrough role. A striking examination of the intricacies of love, tragedy and intimacy, Parting Glances is an essential work of independent cinema. It is Bill Sherwood’s only feature film, the director died of AIDS-related complications in 1990. 1986, 35mm, 90 minutes.
SMOKE SIGNALS
Directed by Chris Eyre
Sunday, October 2, 2 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“An energetic and ambiguous film in part because it refuses to function as an outsider’s guide to Native cultures” —University of Nebraska Press
Smoke Signals explores the powerful relationship between Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor Joseph, two boys growing up on the Couer d’Alene reservation. After the death of Victor’s father, the young men embark on a road trip. This beautiful and tragic journey becomes a platform for Thomas and Victor to voice their conflicting views about what it means to be Native American. 1998, 89 minutes.
PARIAH
Directed by Dee Rees
Friday, October 7, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Real in ways few movies ever are, Pariah mixes the coming out and coming-of-age story and pitches it against the backdrop of an African-American family adapting to the shifting cultural sexual tides. The result is a film that is warm and raw, sometimes both at the same time, and is easily one our favorites of the year.” —Indiewire
Dee Rees’ stunning character study is the semi-autobiographical tale of Alike (Adepero Onduye) a 17-year old lesbian poet living in Brooklyn. Adapted from Rees’ award-winning short, the film follows Alike as she explores the pains and pleasures of young love. 2011, DCP, 86 minutes.
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
Saturday, October 8, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“True originals are hard to come by in cinema, but this heart-on-sleeve, deeply eccentric tale of life, love and loss in the flood waters of New Orleans truly merits the label.” —Time Out
Set within the “bathtub”, a semi-floating, self-sufficient, near-future Louisiana Delta community, Benh Zeitlin’s stunning debut feature, Beasts of The Southern Wild follows a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) as she attempts save her father from a mysterious illness, protect the “bathtub” from rising water levels, and reunite with her long-lost mother. Shot on 16mm film, this beautiful, heartwarming story explores the relationship between a father and daughter. 2012, 93 minutes.
ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW
Directed by Miranda July
Sunday, October 9, 2 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“…leaves you inexplicably happy. It's positively buoyant, like a helium balloon you regret to see float away.” —SFGate
How can we connect in an ever alienating modern world? Me and You and Everyone We Know, the award-winning and critically acclaimed debut feature by artist Miranda July, poses such a question and, with an earnest and defiantly playful tone, evades the answer. The film follows Christine Jespersen (writer/director Miranda July), a struggling video artist, who becomes infatuated with Richard Swersey (John Hawkes), a recently divorced shoe salesman. July makes the most of the small details, and as this poetic film unfolds so do her characters. 2005, 35mm, 91 minutes.
EL NORTE
Directed by Gregory Nava
Friday, October 14, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“[Nava] succeeded in placing the courage and dreams of people like Rosa and Enrique at the center of his story…he foresaw what would become a defining fissure in America’s social fabric: the marginalization of millions of Latino immigrants.”—Criterion Collection
A project from the first Sundance Lab, El Norte is the tenderly drawn story of siblings Rosa and Enrique’s journey from Guatemala to the United States. Produced at a time when debates regarding immigration were often bereft of humanistic insight, El Norte cast light on the political turmoil and labor conditions shaping the experience of millions of American residents. 1983, in Spanish and Maya with English subtitles, 35mm, 121 minutes.
TO SLEEP WITH ANGER
Directed by Charles Burnett
Saturday, October 15, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“The film may have Danny Glover’s greatest performance on film and, as with all of Burnett’s best work, what may at first seem simple on the screen is actually rich with meaning and metaphors. It’s a film that you need to see more than once just to understand and appreciate all the nuances and subtext.” —Indiewire
Directed by acclaimed independent filmmaker Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), at the time of its release To Sleep with Anger won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and a National Society of Film Critics award for Best Screenplay. The film is the story of Harry Mention (Danny Glover) a visitor from the South who enters the home of old friend Paul Butler. Initially invited as a guest, Mention proves to be an increasingly disruptive force, wreaking havoc in Butler’s middleclass life. A family drama, To Sleep With Anger is also the story of trickery, and the tensions between life in 1990s Los Angeles and Southern tradition. 1990, 35mm, 102 minutes.
SIN NOMBRE
Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga
Sunday, October 16, 2 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“This is a stunning feature debut for director Cary Fukunaga. The story borrows from road movies and crime thrillers, but the scenes and situations vibrate with authenticity.” —Star Tribune
Cary Fukunanga’s searing directorial debut is the story of teens Sayra and El Casper journeying by train through Mexico to the United States. While Sayra, who is traveling with her family, seeks a better life in the north, El Casper is fleeing retribution from the gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). An intimate portrait of youth, Sin Nombre also alludes to the political, international and historical forces that render the journey between Central America and United States brutal, corrupt and often insurmountable. 2009, 35mm, 96 minutes.
AMERICAN DREAM
Directed by Barbara Kopple
Thursday, October 20, 7:30 pm FREE
Walker Cinema
Director in Person “As film it is compelling…as a window on union decision-making, it is remarkable” —Chicago Tribune
This Academy Award-winning film (Best Documentary, 1990) is a remarkable look at the year-long fight between Hormel meatpackers in Austin, Minnesota and factory executives in the mid-eighties. Kopple’s setup of the workers strong belief in the middle class promise of the “American Dream” is superb and fascinating but cuts to benefits and wages cause the workers to strike, culminating in the deunionization Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger 1990 Photo courtesy Samuel Goldwyn/Photofest Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre 2009 Photo courtesy Focus Features/Cary Johi Fukunaga Barbara Kopple’s American Dream 1990 Photo courtesy Cabin Creek Films Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary 9 of the entire meatpacking industry. 1990, 35mm, 98 minutes.
CERTAIN WOMEN
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Friday, October 21, 7:30 pm, Free
Walker Cinema
Director in Person “Reichardt has crafted another deeply felt and beautifully ambiguous meditation on contemporary life in the far corners of the American heartland.” —ScreenDaily
Kelly Reichardt (Meek’s Cutoff, Night Moves, Wendy and Lucy) returns to the Walker with her new film, a brilliant portrait of the lives of three women working in Montana. Based on the short stories of Maile Meloy, the film gracefully moves between the lives of a lawyer (Laura Dern), mother and wife (Michelle Williams), and a law student (Kristen Stewart). Through this restrained depiction of the wide open landscape and the people who populate it, Reichardt thoughtfully explores how each character strives to find her own path. 2016, DCP, 107 minutes.
RIVER OF GRASS
Directed by Kelly Reichardt
Saturday, October 22, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“A road movie without the road, a love story without the love, and a crime story without the crime.” —Kelly Reichardt0
Reichardt’s debut is a riff on the American outlaw myth. In washed-out suburban Miami, Cozy Lisa Bowman), a lonely mother of three, meets up with the shiftless Lee Ray Harold (Larry Fessenden) and sees an escape from her dreary existence. Mistaking their mutual aimlessness for excitement, the pair go on the lam. “Reichardt is so agile, ingenious, and funny that she can make a lively, entertaining movie about how life isn’t like the movies” (Los Angeles Times). Selected for the Berlin and Sundance film festivals, and nominated for a Sundance Grand Jury Prize. 1994, DCP, 76 minutes.
PRIMER
Directed by Shane Carruth
Friday, October 28, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“…this film is very, very ambitious and rather mad. Yet how much more interesting than the usual low-IQ product elsewhere. It's an exhilarating, disturbing and funny experience.” —The Guardian
An unapologetically creative contribution to the science fiction genre made on a Director Kelly Reichardt courtesy the Walker Art Center Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass 1994 Photo courtesy Oscilloscope Laboratories Shane Carruth’s Primer 2004 Photo courtesy Visit Films Robert Redford: Independent/Visionary 10 shoestring budget, this intricately plotted thriller depicts Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe’s (David Sullivan) accidental discovery of time travel. After creating a machine that can transport them six hours into the past, the men begin to pursue conflicting applications for their new invention. As dark and unintended consequences to their discovery emerge, Aaron and Abe must navigate mind-bending timelines and duplicitous intentions to survive the present. 2004, DCP, 77 minutes.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez
Friday, October 28, 9:15 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Blair Witch is the most dangerous film in captivity. It's a no-excuses horror show with an emotional wallop like falling headlong into a bear trap.” —Star Tribune
The smash-hit that created the template for documentary-horror filmmaking, The Blair Witch Project was made with a miniscule budget and went on to become one of the most profitable movies all time. At the time of its release The Blair Witch Project, which was advertised through an innovative internet campaign of false news reports, was believed by many terrified fans to be the real-world remnant of a camping trip gone horribly awry. 1999, 35mm, 81 minutes.
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
Directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Saturday, October 29, 7:30 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“The power of the material is irrepressible, weaving consistently infectious and memorable songs through an operatic tale that’s by turn playful, witty, and disarmingly emotional.” —A.V. Club
A “post-punk neo-glam rock musical” Hedwig is the pulsing story of East German genderqueer performer Hedwig’s quest for rock stardom and tumultuous love affair with Tommy Gnossis (Michael Pitt), the angel-faced General’s son who steals Hedwig’s heart and songs. 2001, 35mm, 95 minutes.
THE BABADOOK
Directed by Jennifer Kent
Sunday, October 30, 2 pm
$9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Walker Cinema
“Easily the best horror film of 2014. But bolstered by knockout performances, and a mind-bending narrative, The Babadook is so much more. It's one of the best films of the year.” —CinemaBlend
A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son’s nighttime fear of a shadowy monster. A claustrophobic subversion of horror film clichés, The Babadook asks which is more terrifying: the monster under the bed or the monster within us all? 2014, DCP, 93 minutes.
TICKET INFORMATION
TICKET ON SALE DATES
Retrospective tickets on sale August 16, 11 am
Dialogue tickets on sale for Walker Film Club September 20, 11 am
Dialogue tickets on sale for Walker Members September 27, 11 am
Dialogue tickets on sale September 30, 11 am
Tickets are available at walkerart.org/tickets.
PRICES
Film Tickets: $9 ($7 Walker members, students, and seniors)
Passes: $25 ($20 members, students, and seniors)
Dialogue: $45 ($36 members, students, and seniors)
SERIES PASSES Save with a series pass—a great way to see more films in the Walker Cinema. Purchase any pass for the retrospective and be entered to win two tickets to the Walker Dialogue with Robert Redford (November 12). Passes can be used by one person per film and are nontransferable.
• Redford #AtTheWalker Pass: $25 ($20 Walker members, students, and seniors) See all 9 films as part of this series of films highlighting Redford’s career as actor and director.
• Sundance Film Festival #AtTheWalker Pass: $25 ($20 Walker members, students, and seniors). This pass includes 16 featured films from Sundance Institute and Film Festival.
• Both Passes: $50 ($40 Walker members, students, and seniors) Purchase both passes for unlimited screenings to the entire Robert Redford retrospective. (Note: Tickets to the Dialogue are not included in the passes.)
DIALOGUE TICKET DRAWING
Series pass-holders may enter to win two tickets to the Dialogue on November 12 by providing an e-mail address at the time of purchase. Students are automatically entered with the purchase of a ticket to any screening. Winners will be contacted on November 4. Prizes must be confirmed/claimed by November 9.
Press Contacts:
Walker Art Center Blue Medium, Inc.
Meredith Kessler Mathilde Campergue
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meredith.kessler@walkerart.org mathilde@bluemedium.com
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Twitter: @WalkerArtMedia