October 12, 2007

October 8, 2007

By Margaret Aurelia Faraday, UCSC

If you’re reading this blog make sure you’ve heard of the new Robert Redford film Lions for Lambs.
This is a political film and Robert Redford said it himself: it was meant to provoke thought and inspire ideas.

The following is from a letter to my dad:
WOWOW Do I have news for you! Do you know Robert Redford? Guess what? I do! Well not really, but I met him today at a “college round-table interview” in a super super fancy hotel in SF. It was a spur of the moment thing. Just Think got a call from the Redford people about getting some youth to screen the film he just produced, directed and starred in. Can you believe it?? One minute we’re in a staff meeting, the next, they’re sending us off to a screening of the movie and then to a fancy hotel where we waited in a special hospitality suite with fancy yummy food and all these other college age people and press people. Then they ushered us up to the top of the hotel to this fancy and I mean fancy place where we waited in the hall way for a bit. Then we went into this patio that was covered with a white canopy and it was all white, with white floor, table, chairs, curtains…. and there was Robert Redford waiting for us. He stood up and shook each of our hands and we told him our names and our colleges. Then we all sat around the tables and asked him questions about the movie and about himself and he talked and talked and talked and gave each person who asked him a question his undivided attention and answered the question and then went on and on and on until someone else asked him a question. I asked him a good one ( I think) and he seemed to like it. Then at the end they tried to get us to leave and well I wanted to ask him another question and so I stuck around a bit longer and then he came right over to me and and shook my hand again and I told him I had another question. I asked him what he thought the people would think about his movie and he said he was really wondering that himself.

Can you believe that? It’s true! The movie was good. It stars Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and Robert Redford and a couple other famous young guys who we actually got to sit down with after Redford and ask more questions a little more casually. Then we left the hotel. Mannnn that hotel was amazing. There were several elevators and each one had these colored lights- we rode in three of them- a purple one, a green one and an orange one. The floors were different color themes too. We were on a Lavender floor where everything was lavender and very tasteful and high quality. The hallway we waited in was all brown and orange. The lobby was the nicest lobby I’ve ever been in and the bathroom was the weirdest bathroom I’ve ever been in too.

Anyway, I guess the college round tables are pretty common for college students who write for their school newspapers or websites get on the radar of these PR people and then they get invited to all the interviews. One of the guy’s is going to interview Ben Affleck tomorrow I guess. I don’t think we’ll get to do that. We got this chance because the film had to do with youth and the media and that ties into our media literacy mission. Also, Elana, our Executive Director has worked with Redford in the past on some projects and Just Think is would love him to support us and our mission since he practically does already just through his own work.
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If you’re still with me…..

The time with Redford-
I could tell right away when I entered that he was going to be exactly the way I pictured him to be- warm, intelligent, sincere, sharp, calm. The first questions he answered weren’t about the movie so much, and the trend continued for several questions. Each of the nine of us around the tables were anxious to get our question in. Since Mr. Redford spent his time fully answering the questions, we reverted to hand raising rather than interrupting Redford. But since he looked straight at the person who asked the question, his eyes seldom wandered to see our hands politely raised. Eventually, everyone got to ask at least one question. I asked him how he thought the young audience would be reached and how they’d react to the story. Of course, it didn’t come out exactly how I wanted it to, but Mr. Redford understood my question and my interest in the portrayal of youth in the film and it’s relationship to actual youth who may or may not see the film. Mr. Redford said that in no way did he think all youth were alike, and especially not all complacent and as self centered as the character played by Andrew Garfield.

Mr. Redford said so many other wonderful things. He talked about how the actors came on to do the film. Meryl Streep actually came to him with the script and Tom Cruise was interested in playing a different sort of role. Redford said that the studio probably wouldn’t have made the film if those actors hadn’t signed on.

Funny how things all connect- the film ties deeply into media literacy and youth education, perceptions of reality and governance, ethics, honesty integrity and dignity in actions chosen in life. I got really inspired as Robert Redford spoke to us, he didn’t seem like he held back. He expressed his disappointment in our media and in our current presidential administration. But what mostly got me and connected with me was the concern he shared over what media people see and then believe. Who’s job is it to monitor others if people can’t monitor themselves? It all narrows down to the individual and their choices, but there are so many ways and places our views can be influenced. The main problems the film presented are largely based on the actions of the media and the politicians, but also on the individual and their either active or complacent attitudes toward making the world the way they want it to be.

He said one word could characterize this time in our history: Quagmire. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. But I realized that the line in the movie- where the professor answers the question- why do anything when either choice you make lands you in the same place. In the movie he said, at least you tried. But I immediately thought the answer was- you’ll never have known if you didn’t try. What if….

I’m not a movie critic or anything, but what the movie didn’t do in glorious filmmaking and innovation, it did in inspiring deep feelings for improving the world and motivation to act.

Margaret Aurelia Faraday

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