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In The Clearing, Robert Redford plays a wealthy businessman who is kidnapped by a lonely and
bitter exemployee played by Willem DeFoe. Helen Mirren plays Redford’s tormented wife
in this thriller that is heavy on drama. Redford rarely talks about his personal life. The
only way to get inside his head is through his films. You never really interview Redford,
you experience him. He’s as much a philosopher as he is an actor/director.
Depending on what you think about life, what your spiritual thinking is, what religion
you are a part of, you either have a life after this or you don’t. Whatever, the life
you are given is the life you’ve got and that’s the one thing you do know. You better
make the most out of it. Some people don’t. Couch potatoes, what have you, that’s sad,
that’s tragic. Some people try to make too much out of it and they make mistakes so this
whole syndrome of following the american dream is a very double edged sword and that’s
what this character has to face in crisis, I liked it.
Do you have any idea to see you wife go to work everyday instead of float in a pool.
No I don’t. Well it stinks Wayne, it stinks seeing your life fall apart.
Another issue he feels strongly about it money. His character, Wayne Hayes, has a lot of it…but
will an ransom save him ? Money, money really isn’t anything in the
end. Particularly under the circumstances he finds
himself in. Money, um, well the issue of money is obviously
a big issue, it governs our lives. Money as an end is never appealing to me, as a means
to an end, yes. As an end, no.
What we see with this character is that he has bought into the american dream on the
wrong side. About money’s success. It skips things of greater value that he’s missed.
I think this business of reflection is very important and I’m afraid the world we are
in now is so jammed with technology, that technology is kind of leading the show. They
way the new technology is working, when I go around I see a lot of people on their computer
screens, completely into their screens, communicating to other people.
It’s the next advancement after telephones. You’re not touching anyone and you’re
not looking at anyone. People on cell phones, walking, where normally they used to walk,
you would have look at people when you were walking but now you don’t because you are
obsessed with (phone). We are beginning to loose the value of human
contact and I don’t where that is going to go but I think there is probably a danger
to it. With the imagery coming at you, you have the ability to snap through information
almost faster than you can take it in. When do you have time to think about what it really
means. I think that’s why we see politically in
this country so much spin going on. Why people think they can get away with it because they
know a lot of people aren’t paying attention. Only into a soundbite thing, like this interview,
but only a soundbite moment, they think, that’s the only thing I need to do, just satisfy
them for a second, that’s dangerous. I need to report a missing person.
Redford’s stand on technology is something to admire in this day and age. Most of us
can’t live without our PC’s or cell phones. So you don’t have a blackberry or a computer…how
about a cell phone ? I use other people’s cell phones when I’m
in a desperate situation. I try not to carry one around with me. I don’t want to be hounded
and followed. I don’t want to send emails or get emails. They are valuable for some
people but if I did that, forget it, I would have no life at all.