The golden ages of a man
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The Age
But who is Robert Redford? Is there any connection between the man born Charles Robert Redford jnr in Santa Monica in 1937 and the kinds of characters he's played? Is it possible to probe the screen persona and find anything more than a mirage? Is he the mysteriously aloof stranger, the outlaw type, the hollow man, or the world-weary lover? And what is the key to his unquestionable charisma?

Can we learn something about him from the cheeky grin he wears in Barefoot in the Park (1967), a role which he carried from an 11-month stint on Broadway opposite Elizabeth Ashley to the screen with Jane Fonda? Or from the malaise that underscores his characterisation of the kidnapped business magnate in The Clearing?

It's impossible to know. All such a survey can do is sketch the parameters of the persona - an object of desire who generally turns out to be unattainable, a man of action who's always equally at home with reflection, a figure simultaneously mythic and human, heroic and vulnerable, impossibly good-looking and surprisingly flawed. In short, a distinctive collection of potentially fascinating contradictions that filmmakers can use however they wish.

Some of Redford's most rewarding parts have been the ones that have turned the golden boy persona against itself. There are several examples, including The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974) and All the President's Men (1976) - each of which transforms the agent of the American dream into a site of anxiety. In a 1980 interview in Rolling Stone, he says: "I'm interested in what's wrong in what appears to be perfect."

Redford's acting method, which David Downing memorably describes, in his 1982 book about Redford, as "over-understatement", places him in the tradition of actors whose performances have less to do with their emotive flexibility than with a dramatic minimalism. The silent, melancholy look he gives to Helen Mirren before he heads off to work at the start of The Clearing says more about the state of their marriage than any extended scenes of exposition could ever have revealed.

Redford is a veteran of the less-is-more school. He's not like Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro or Al Pacino, who have their own ways of doing things. Redford will never chew the scenery. Never. He prefers to quietly exist within it, to gently nudge us towards an appreciation of his characters rather than allowing them to loudly declare themselves.

For some this has always been a sign of his uncertainty as an actor. For others, such as director Sydney Pollack, who was cast alongside Redford in War Hunt and who has directed him seven times, it's an indication of his strength.

"In my opinion, he's one of the best movie actors we've ever had in America. He's never doing nothing, but he does often hold something back, which, for me, only makes him more interesting."

Pollack's description of Redford as an actor might well also apply to his performances as a public figure outside the films in which he appears. There's absolutely no reason to presume that the Robert Redford who occasionally steps away from his privacy and into the public eye is any less of a character than the ones he plays on screen. The difference is that he's played here by someone who shares his name (whereas Cary Grant, for example, was played by Archibald Leach).

There's much that's consistent in the picture he constructs of himself and his world in interviews. This Robert Redford is thoughtful, but distant. He values his privacy, and would much rather be off alone in the Utah wilderness than attending some Hollywood premiere or giving an interview.

Both are situations in which he's required to perform: to play Robert Redford.

"I never aimed to be a sex symbol, a classical actor, a box-office draw, or any of those things," he says in Downing's book. "I just did my job, went home and put myself as far away from the movie-star thing as I could."

Nevertheless, he's been prepared to speak up, to make himself available when the occasion demands, whether it's on behalf of his beloved Sundance Institute, which he established as a haven for independent filmmakers in 1981, or for the environmental causes for which he's long been a spokesman. He's always worn his liberal principles on his sleeve, but laughed at the idea that he might go into politics.

Bringing a sense of humour to his public persona, he's also proclaimed a disinterest in examining his motivations, describing himself as the antithesis of Woody Allen. "Some people have psychoanalysis. I have Utah." His guardedness has always been at odds with the tell-all impulse - or at least the make-it-all-up one - of those celebrities who thrive on tabloid attention. And, inasmuch as it's been possible for him to do so, he's kept his personal life a secret.

Still, it hasn't been an entirely private one. His marriage at 21 to Lola Van Wagenen ended in 1985. The couple had four children, one of whom died of sudden infant death syndrome. They're now also grandparents. Since the divorce, Redford's name has been romantically linked (as they say) with Debra Winger, Sonia Braga and costume designer Kathy O'Rear. Newspaper reports suggest that, although he's in a "happy relationship" with German artist Sibylle Szaggars, the pair - after the style of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir - continue to live apart.

Some of what emerges about him he's able to control. Most of it he's not. And he would seem to be at least partially responsible for a number of the revealing contradictions that have emerged.

Redford has always said that he hates the way he's treated as a walking photo opportunity. "The bad part is that you become an object," he told Esquire in 1988. "And there are three dangerous stages to that: one, people start treating you like an object; two, you start behaving like an object; and three, you become one. That's terminal."

Yet he's usually been prepared to take time out to pose for Annie Leibowitz's admiring camera, or for the covers of the publications in which interviews have appeared. Clad in smart executive suits or designer leisure gear, he's at least arrived at stage two.

He's also long been talking about abandoning acting. Downing quotes him as planning to call a halt to this part of his career soon after The Way We Were. "I am retiring from films, definitely," he announced.

It's also curious to see someone who's been such a champion of independent filmmakers remain so close to the mainstream as an actor but also as a director. Only The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) and A River Runs Through It (1992), both of which he directed, can be described as even vaguely independent.

While he may be a political liberal, he otherwise appears to be extremely reserved in his tastes, leading Downing to dub him a "conservative rebel". Few of the films he's directed reflect a risk-taking personality. Perhaps his latest project, Aloft, the story of two men tracking the flight path of the North American peregrine falcon, which is scheduled to go into production this year, will open up new directions.

What he's been unable to control have been the increasingly personal, sometimes ageist putdowns of his work on-screen and as a director. Equally hurtful must be the sneers at his life away from the camera. In the book, Hollywood Interrupted - Insanity Chic in Babylon, co-authored by Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner and published this year, he's described - along with Susan Sarandon - as "a bloviating bleeding heart".

And the view of him that emerges through Down and Dirty Pictures, Peter Biskind's fascinating tell-all history of the rise and fall of the American independent film movement during the 1980s and '90s, is of a man who is not only "cautious by nature and almost paralysed by perfectionism" but occasionally duplicitous. In the book, Sundance becomes a dream destroyed by Redford's prevarications and by its movement ever closer to the values that hold sway in Hollywood.

There's a considerable irony in the fact that while Redford has gone to considerable lengths to shun media attention, his image has acquired a life of its own. The criticism of his achievements over the past 40 years - as an actor, a director, the force behind Sundance, an environmental activist, a liberal spokesman on behalf of a better America - is starting to seem over the top. Few can match his contributions to American film on camera and behind the scenes. Maybe it's time to give the guy a break.