Robert Redford will never be too old for me.

Do you remember the movie and the actor where you first truly fell in love with the main character?  You were somewhat a kid yourself unsure but through your own illusion you could be in the movie with the main character.  Do you remember where you were, what was going on in your life at the time?  I do.  Mine was The Way We Were with Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.  Over the years I’ve I watched it over and over again and each time I felt something different because I could understand the movie from another angle based on what was going on in my life.  After all these years, I have never forgotten how I felt when I first saw this movie.  Sydney Pollack directs this movie beautifully fleshing out a story about growing older and having or not having regrets in the decision we made.

 

 I walked to the local movie theater.  I wasn’t expecting much and I was in 6^th grade.  A recent move across 3 states was beginning to take its toll. The new kids in the new school were NOT going to accept me as I thought.  The movie pulls you in beautifully with Barbra Streisand rendition of “Memories” haunting and addictive a song like the movie never quite resolves itself.  Barbra keeps her voice unique making it even better by knowing what songs works best, learning from the masters such as Judy Garland, softening her voice so she allow us listeners to come into her magical world, many people love her for these and other reasons. “Memories” was the perfect song for the perfect movie, and the song escorts us all into the beauty of this timeless tale.  All I knew when I saw Robert Redford running in a track meet in the opening scenes along with the song is love, speechless was I just to look at him.  I don’t remember much of the movie the first time I saw it and some parts were a little grown up for me as I would later understand, but I loved every part of it.

Can I tell you how perfectly cast the movie was, how common and uncommon, the boy you loved so much you thought you could change him?  Barbra was not the prettiest in the typical accepted manner but she worked harder.  That was me, not the prettiest but if I worked hard at it I too could have a boyfriend...a husband like Robert Redford.  Subsequently, I compared all my early boyfriends to him in that movie.  Here in this movie he dressed almost as nice as Ryan O’Neal in Love Story.  He was smart, he was understanding, he was curious about the girl he didn’t know and he wouldn’t take other people’s branding of that person, he had to know the truth for himself, he finally relents to the girl who loved him more… who loved him first.  I was mad when Barbra stuck up for her thoughts  and created waves in the dialogue with Robert Redford (Hubble Gardner).  Shut Up Barbra!  Look who you have…Robert Redford! Years later I would understand her character better and understood why she spoke her mind.  That was the appeal of the amazing chemistry between her and Redford.

I wanted to be Barbra.  My mom also saw the movie and made a remark about how big her nose was and I said no she doesn’t.  Barbra was a role model for all women who did not fit the common mold of pretty, proper, puppet.  She has a style all her own and because its unique and clearly only Barbra, she’s even more beautiful.  She always knew about fit and proportion in her attire, in this movie she’s a winner.  She would balance her prominent  nose with her hairstyle, a hat or turban, paint those wondrous real nails(best hands ever) and work it, with confidence in who she was but always a tenderness to show us she was vulnerable behind her fashion statements. I am thankful for that.  I love all her outfits in this movie which people say is the 40s meets the 70s. Perhaps, but Barbra was beautiful because besides her amazing voice, she worked with what she had.and always kept it strong, beautiful, and original. The outfits never overtook the scene,amazingly timeless and everyday style brought to a new level. There were no designer labels but outfits that perfectly fit, were timeless, and added to the movie's beauty.  The amazing chemistry and differences of Robert Redford and Barbra left us all breathless. 

 

Best scene, the part where Robert Redford walks through a crowded dance (handsome as ever) floor to dance with Barbra, and when he does, he is quietly smitten.  I wondered if a future man would walk across the dance floor to dance with me.  I always love movies where the guy finally realizes he loves the girl and he runs to be with her. They realize they are in love and they run toward that someone.  I will never tire of that schmaltzy scene. 

 

I also love the part where Robert Redford calls Barbra to cross the street and takes the time to get to know her. He’s perfect in his quiet cool of a simple turtleneck sweater and when he ties her shoe we all held our breath.  Yes, back in the day before the cell phones and constant "I don’t want to be ever lonely" texters,  we all shared a common feeling mixed with popcorn and Junior Mints by all seeing the same movie for the first time shared in our attention, shared in our emotions, shared in a dark theater able to absorb the director’s intent, the actor’s skill, cry at the required parts, walk home in a dreamy daze, wake up the next morning and think about it again.

This is the best dialogue in the movie, the courage to fight for who you love, in your bathrobe, completely vulnerable. Barbra is the only one who can show us how to play this scene with style.

Katie Morosky : I don't have the right style for you do I?

Hubbell Gardner: No you don't have the right style.

Katie Morosky : I'll change.

Hubbell Gardner: No, don't change. You're your own girl, you have your own style.

Katie Morosky : But then I won't have you. Why can't I have you?

Hubbell Gardner: Because you push too hard, every damn minute. There's no time to ever relax and enjoy living. Every things too serious to be so serious.

Katie Morosky : If I push too hard it's because I want things to be better, I want us to be better, I want you to be better. Sure I make waves you have I mean you have to. And I'll keep making them till your everything you should be and will be. You'll never find anyone as good for you as I am, to believe in you as much as I do or to love you as much.

Hubbell Gardner: I know that.

Katie Morosky : Well then why?

Hubbell Gardner: Do you think if I come back its going to be okay by magic? What's going to change? What's going to be different? We'll both be wrong, we'll both lose.

Katie Morosky : Couldn't we both win?

Did you know that the pink terrycloth bathrobe in this phone scene was sold at an auction recently for :$5,937.50?  Worth every penny. They should put it in the Smithsonian.  The bathrobe is common the meaning behind it is not.  We all want to secretly be like Katie, fighting as hard as we can for the one we love. I would too, any guy that looked like that,and put his hand on my chin to kiss me.  I would fight and sob just like Barbra did in the scene so vulnerable and also so powerful.

 

 

 

 

Th classic move of girlfriend to boyfriend is the way in which Barbra tenderly and expertly moves his bangs through the movie. Those nails not acting like showy talons but rather elegant knowing stylists making over even Robert Redford.  This loving gesture is made throughout the movie and is its trademark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I always wondered as a young girl would I ever meet Robert Redford.  I saw every movie he ever made and now as we all grow older, he will never be too old for me.  He has brains behind that beauty.  He won an Academy Award for Ordinary People, created Sundance.  I knew it all the time, that even as a young girl, he would be great as he was always great in my eyes then and now.

The Way We Were showed us all the love prevails to a point.  I always wanted them to get back together but as I would learn in my adulthood, that doesn’t always happen.  We too casually throw away the relationship because of inevitable difficulty.  Why don’t we fight harder to stay together? The movie also shows the power of outside influences and the images we chose to create, in the end we have to look at are our wrinkles, grey hair, what’s  left of our integrity and our memories of who we were and who we tried to be and how it all really played out.   The road to love will be full of compromise. I love how the movie shoes the joy in the simple things in life, having a cup of coffee, rowing on the lake (Barbra rows the boat, I would have done the same) talking in front of the fireplace after a supper made in a tiny apartment, putting up a volleyball net on the beach, to just sit at night in an outdoor cafe and share a conversation and a beer.  It the simple things done in a classy connected way, the way we chose who to love and how we loved them, the sheer wonder of being in love and being love, that makes us who we are and in the end are the very best memories.

 

At the end of the movie, Robert Redford was my imaginary boyfriend for years until I was ready for a real one.  He would be the one who understood me, who wanted to get to know me, one who loved me because of who I wanted to be.  This thought, this comforting thought would pull through a tough year of bullying, only in those days if you were bullied, it didn’t make the newspaper like it does now. The thought of Robert Redford, my movie boyfriend, would help me to navigate the turmoil of brothers who only wanted to crush whatever I would try to build up. Sure the turmoil "made me stronger, who I am today" but I couldn't have done it without the realization that someday in the future there could be someone like this in my life.  You need those dreams.
 

I wonder if Robert Redford knows what he did for me when there was really no one.  I wonder if in making such a movie he realized that vicariously someone would make him their protective, understanding, crazy handsome boyfriend to try and be normal if only in my mind while I made it through puberty and high school.   I’m sure he doesn’t mind, and if he did know, he would have approved.

In looking at the news of bullied young girls such as Phoebe Prince, I wonder if they had a Robert Redford imaginary boyfriend to pull them through those tough years, would they have made it to the other side.  For whatever reason, they didn’t have the resourcefulness to do so and now this world will never know who they had wanted to be, who they would have loved, and who they could have been as some deluge of mean texts brought them to a dark closet and a rope.  I stare at Phoebe Prince and wonder about all the things, bullying included, she had to put in some type of mental suitcase to go on.  It was simply too much for her.  Movie Stars are called stars because in a way they are just that to us common people who are looking up to them in the theater and in our own lives for the answers.  Even if the answer doesn’t come to you right away they offer a chance to see what it could be like. 

 

 

 

The Way We Were, 1973. A movie about who we wanted to be and who we wish we were. Amazing movie and song. Click on photo to hear Barbra singing her best song always accredited to her just like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was always linked to Judy Garland