A friend of mine that was in Desert Storm taught me this. Of course, he was on the other side
One of my favourites. Great cast.
Kingsley and Redford on the roof: "There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information"
ascagnel_ · 2h ago
They're not on the roof for that scene; they're in his office, using the computer room's air conditioning as a sound mask (and using a Cray Y-MP as a bench). While the movie takes some very early-90s liberties with technology (especially the scene where they use the chip), it's remarkably respectful of hacking -- there's a stronger emphasis on social engineering then the purely technical, and my "head canon" is that the chip itself is a quantum chip capable of breaking any then-known encryption.
sedawkgrep · 1m ago
> it's remarkably respectful of hacking
This is one of my favorite things about the movie, and why I always recommended it to my security friends.
piltdownman · 24m ago
So much so that it arguably accelerated the introduction of the Clipper Chip by unimaginative spooks only a year later.
For me the biggest Hollywood liberty taken is the beautiful ASCII Colourized UIs for federal agencies and ATC that they reveal with the decrypt!
spl757 · 1h ago
Anyone interested in learning more about social engineering should check out "The Art of" books by legendary hacker Kevin Mitnick.
dbg31415 · 31m ago
Or… sticking to the theme…
The Old Man and the Gun
… another great film by Redford, about an elderly man who leans on his charisma and confidence to rob banks. Based on a true story.
piltdownman · 18m ago
Or... The Sting!
Back when Social Engineering meant wearing a hell of a suit and dodging the 'Bunco Squad'. All the elements are there: Greed, Scarcity, a sense of urgency, all legitimised by the leveraging of Social "proof".
If it was remade today there'd be a good chance Redford would find Newman's character down on his luck running facebook ads for crypto scams featuring AI videos of prominent celebrities.
I love the way you confidently relied on your 80s film trivia memory to correct someone online without double checking. Im not being sarcastic its kinda cool.
parenthesis · 1h ago
Sneakers is from 1992.
tveyben · 44m ago
Thus the “late 80’ies”…
signa11 · 21m ago
early nineties ?
JKCalhoun · 3h ago
He more or less was everywhere when I was growing up in the 1970's. "The Sting", "All the President's Men", etc. "The Great Waldo Pepper" was often on T.V.
"Jeremiah Johnson" though is still a favorite of mine. Got me into blackpowder.
Haven't rewatched since it was first released. As an audio person I was particularly impressed with a scene whereby someone who was locked in a trunk determined their location by remembering the sound made by bumps on a specific road. Is that right? Or am I thinking of the last time I was kidnapped?
The sounds that cars make over the different bridges iirc. Cool scene!
hbarka · 1h ago
There are moments when I’m driving over the San Mateo Bridge and I instantly think about this movie.
hedgehog · 18m ago
Going to a cocktail party?
greesil · 1h ago
Any time I'm visiting and am on the Embarcadero. It's funny watching it, you can still see workers in the background cleaning up the median which used to have a freeway over it from the '89 quake.
vinkelhake · 1h ago
I first watched it back when it came out. At the time I was living in a different country and San Francisco was just another US city to me. I just happened to re-watch it yesterday (it still holds up) for the first time since moving to the bay area.
It was interesting hearing the names of the locations and bridges that previously meant nothing to me (except the golden gate).
Not to mention one of the most ridiculously stacked casts — it's incredible how many greats are in it. And it's one of my favorite hacking movies of all time.
duxup · 2h ago
It's such a "old fashioned" kind of film, the key scenes are so memorable.
wslh · 2h ago
I think it is one of the more realistic hacker movies. You can read also about Leonard Adleman's participation in the movie[1]. Adleman is the A in RSA.
Also, Lawrence (Larry) Lasker[2] was the writer of Sneakers AND War Games!
Oh my. Those two movies always had a similar vibe to me and now I know why.
sgt · 2h ago
My first thought when I saw his name. I love many of his movies but Sneakers has to be my favorite!
nailer · 2h ago
It’s also one of the few hacking movies that stands up - assume ‘the box’ is a prototype quantum computer. Better yet assume it has a production process with such a high failure rate they’ve been churning these out for years just to produce a single working instance.
booleandilemma · 56m ago
I saw it as a kid and it was one of the movies that inspired me to get into software.
I hope there are still movies being made today that inspire the next generation of programmers. It feels like it's all Marvel now.
geerlingguy · 3h ago
"My voice is my passport. Verify me"
greesil · 1h ago
"Alexa, buy me three tons of toilet paper"
duxup · 1h ago
Little riff on that:
I miss when Amazon had the "Dash" buttons, it was better than voice:
just a few days ago I had an idea for a shirt and sent it to a designer on fiverr. I was very pleased with what I got back. "Secrets are Power" was my nod to one of my favorite movies Sneakers! Rest in Piece Mr. Redford.
http://bit.ly/3Ip3tr3 link to the shirt if you want to look at it. there is a message encoding in the background.
mentalgear · 2h ago
Oh no - we’ve lost a great defender of democracy and the environment. Throughout his personal life and professional film career, he consistently sought to spotlight government, corporate, and military-industrial corruption while shining a light on the importance of democracy. The world has lost a remarkable person!
Do yourself a favor and watch some of his most important movies that represented his ideology "Truth", "Brubaker", "Sneakers" or "Spy Game".
stronglikedan · 15m ago
Two remarkable people in less than one week. Damn shame, but more will pick up their gauntlets and run with them!
trillic · 3h ago
"All is Lost" (2013) funny enough got me interested in offshore sailing in my late teens.
Incredible performance by Redford, first film that really left an impression on me. There is only one or two lines of dialogue in the entire film.
I do think this is one of Redford's very best films. A lot of detractors make the mistake of assuming the character is intended to represent an expert & experienced sailor, leading to a complete misread of the story. It is possible to be both clever & unwise.
I loved this very much, and I've seen it a couple of times. Together with "Touching the Void" it ranks high on my list of the best survival pictures ever made, a specific genre I enjoy very much.
And it's very intimate. 106 minutes of just you the viewer, and Robert Redford. I might just rewatch it tonight. It feels fitting.
konfusinomicon · 1h ago
my favorite performance of his! its a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. so many anxiety inducing moments, especially for those who fear the ocean
spapas82 · 2h ago
I even got the protagonists watch (seiko Pepsi)
JodieBenitez · 2h ago
Came here to say this. Incredible movie.
shelled · 1h ago
I used to feel some sort of strange reassurance whenever I'd see him on screen, in any kind of film, in any kind of role.
Being an espionage lover, of course, Spy Game will have a special place; then there's him playing Sundance Kid, but I remember him for Out of Africa and The Way We Were. I know many might say, 'But he was not central in them'; I'd say that he was. And no, not the only central role. That's how I remember him and these films. What masterpieces of films, and how beautifully he played his roles in these; and the things he stood for.
gdubs · 1h ago
His performance in Spy Game is really great — recently rewatched it. The way he captured so well the idea that younger generations think they've got it all figured out — but the old hats still have some tricks up their sleeve.
tomaytotomato · 1h ago
Operation Dinner Out - is something I call team dinners in the company calendar at work - a nod to that movie.
drexlspivey · 20m ago
If you like RR and spy films then definitely check “Three Days of the Condor”
piltdownman · 9m ago
Unfortunately I feel that while it's very well shot and paced, the gendered interplay from RR and his co-star feels a little iffy in the modern day - particularly since the romantic sub-plot requires so much suspension of disbelief. So much so that the main characters in the Elmore Leonard spy-comedy "Out of Sight" ridicule it.
Apparently, as per Reddit, the director kept wanting her to look more scared in her initial scenes; explaining the horror of being kidnapped and imprisoned in her own home by a strange man. She kept pleading "But it's Robert Redford"!
If you like the espionage and unique feel of films of that era though, you can't do much better than Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation', starring a wonderfully morose Gene Hackman. A very worthy Palme D'Or winner in '74.
Fred Zinnemann's 'The Day of the Jackal' in '73 is also a high-point for espionage-thrillers of the decade.
lapcat · 2h ago
Redford's Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival was a monumental contribution, changing the film industry for the better, a boon to indie filmmakers. IMO this is Redford's most important legacy.
This is so essential now especially as Hollywood has become more consolidated and corporate.
julienchastang · 2h ago
I heard the late Roger Ebert once say that Robert Redford had done more for independent cinema than anyone.
nickdothutton · 1h ago
Last few minutes of Three Days Of The Condor[1] should be required watching for everyone.
Purely in terms of watching great actors at work, I think the penultimate scene is more striking. It sets up the excellent scene you shared rather well, too.
They really don't make them like Robert Redford anymore — truly one of my favorite actors who could elevate anything he was in. 89 is an impressive run — especially given how sharp he was right up til the end.
If you've never seen his movies, you can basically pick them at random and you'll find a good one. But All the President's Men is one of my favorite films of all time.
Any actor with even 10% of successful movies that Redford would be considered an "A" lister. Thanks for all the entertainment for 5 decades, Robert. RIP.
I found the Watchmen HBO series alternate universe version of Redford as “liberal version of president Ronald Reagan” a fascinating thought experiment
piltdownman · 6m ago
Not just that, but the wholly plausible concept of "Redfordations" - a fictional U.S. law establishing reparations for descendants of racial injustices in the form of lifetime tax exemptions - seemed very on-brand for the man and his legacy.
"Lions for Lambs" is widely panned, but I think spoke to a particular subset of people interested in doing over talking. RIP to a great.
OhMeadhbh · 2h ago
#SETEC_ASTRONOMY
dkrich · 3h ago
The introduction to a river runs through it is an interesting read. I never realized how much creative influence Redford had over the production of the movie until I read it a few months ago.
gigatexal · 2h ago
Sad. He was so prolific and such a good actor. I liked a lot of his films. Two in particular were The Last Castle and Spy Game.
sunscream89 · 3h ago
Redford was an excellent human off screen. Applied his fame and resources in meaningful ways. His biography is worth a read.
Oh wow, last night I was just listening to his commentary on "All the President's Men" (which came up a couple of weeks ago here on HN when we were talking about ratfucking).
Great movie, great commentary.
fl4tul4 · 2h ago
RIP Bob Redford, your movies will stay with us forever.
RajT88 · 1h ago
...and a river runs through it.
zoeysmithe · 1h ago
I know we live in an age where if someone dies, you cannot criticize him, but Redford is famous for the blackballing of James Woods. I vehemently disagree with Woods' politics but that shouldnt preclude him from employment. Its very clear people like Redform made sure people like Woods were targeted for their political and personal views. Redford was a huge Hollywood power, not just this 'kindly grandpa' actor but a power-player of the highest order. Redford ran a major film and television production company and as such decided, personally, who to hire or fire on his own whim.
Robert Redford is also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, so getting on his bad-side is strongly career-effecting. People lived in fear of getting on this guy's bad side.
On set, he sounds like the typical Hollywood nightmare with famous clashes with his costars and directors. Arthur Laurents, the writer of The Way We Were, described Redford as an "ego maniac" and control freak for his on-set behaviors.
I say this as a leftist, but "The Truth" is liberal catering-to, and whitewashes Rathers's
lack of due diligence in the Bush document, which even to a largely uniformed person like me thought, "Uh isnt that a modern font?" Dan Rather's rush to to this story is not a 'victim' but the failure of basic journalism. I dont think Rather should have resigned, but the idea that's he's this kind-hearted innocent, as the film mostly portrays him as, is just dishonesty. Rather saw money and fame in breaking a big story, and ran with it without much care.
Shrug, I've always seen his PR as very heavily manufactured and played towards the NYTimes and Variety and Sundance crowd in a very targeted way. And it worked, Redford died with an estate worth at least $200m. Capitalism gonna capitalism I guess, but the reality is Redford was quite the vindictive partisan who used his wealth and power against his perceived political enemies and whitewashed some questionable people.
cm2012 · 1h ago
The article also describes him as the kind of environmentalist who makes my eyes roll - a rich person principally concerned with making sure their local area looks untouched and beautiful so they can ride their Ferrari through it.
zoeysmithe · 1h ago
That's a good point. I have less criticism there because there is potential for someone like that to affect national or global policy and the individual can't often do much on a persona consumption level. Like I dont want to nitpick someone for driving a corvette or using paper cups. Its not like driving an SUV or running the dishwasher daily is so much better. If he lived a very modest life, would anything be different environmentally? Maybe slightly less carbon out there? The same way I dont think reusing straws is helping for me.
But the carbon footprint of the jetset crowd is significant and worth pointing out. And, yes, how a lot of it is things like protecting wealthy-coded wildlife touristy-type areas in California and such and less effort in cleaning up factories in Alabama or India and such. Or how as a capital owning class person, he negotiated against the working class with his productions, and as such the dynamics that make Alabama and India poor, the capitalistic effect of driving down wages and the political power of these working people who want reform, well, he's part of the problem there too. He can't be both 'the boss' and a worker at the same time.
And the zero effort for him and his cohorts to fly first class instead of private jet or take a regular boat and not a mega yacht or other massive carbon producers.
But his behavior on set, his bias in "The Truth,' and his hiring policies are entirely his choice and can be made nearly entirely meritorious. He simply decided to not act meritorious.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
One of my favourites. Great cast.
Kingsley and Redford on the roof: "There's a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it's not about who's got the most bullets. It's about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think... it's all about the information"
This is one of my favorite things about the movie, and why I always recommended it to my security friends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
For me the biggest Hollywood liberty taken is the beautiful ASCII Colourized UIs for federal agencies and ATC that they reveal with the decrypt!
The Old Man and the Gun
… another great film by Redford, about an elderly man who leans on his charisma and confidence to rob banks. Based on a true story.
Back when Social Engineering meant wearing a hell of a suit and dodging the 'Bunco Squad'. All the elements are there: Greed, Scarcity, a sense of urgency, all legitimised by the leveraging of Social "proof".
If it was remade today there'd be a good chance Redford would find Newman's character down on his luck running facebook ads for crypto scams featuring AI videos of prominent celebrities.
"Jeremiah Johnson" though is still a favorite of mine. Got me into blackpowder.
And surprised later when watching The Twilight Zone and he turned up as "Death": https://youtu.be/9tfyv4BZRug
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor
It was interesting hearing the names of the locations and bridges that previously meant nothing to me (except the golden gate).
It's free to watch on youtube at the moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy9XYQBBIJ4
Also, Lawrence (Larry) Lasker[2] was the writer of Sneakers AND War Games!
[1] https://molecularscience.usc.edu/sneakers/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lasker
I hope there are still movies being made today that inspire the next generation of programmers. It feels like it's all Marvel now.
I miss when Amazon had the "Dash" buttons, it was better than voice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Dash
http://bit.ly/3Ip3tr3 link to the shirt if you want to look at it. there is a message encoding in the background.
Do yourself a favor and watch some of his most important movies that represented his ideology "Truth", "Brubaker", "Sneakers" or "Spy Game".
Incredible performance by Redford, first film that really left an impression on me. There is only one or two lines of dialogue in the entire film.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2017038/
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/all-is-lost-2013
Edit: Screenplay link! https://thescriptsavant.com/movies/All_Is_Lost.pdf
And it's very intimate. 106 minutes of just you the viewer, and Robert Redford. I might just rewatch it tonight. It feels fitting.
Being an espionage lover, of course, Spy Game will have a special place; then there's him playing Sundance Kid, but I remember him for Out of Africa and The Way We Were. I know many might say, 'But he was not central in them'; I'd say that he was. And no, not the only central role. That's how I remember him and these films. What masterpieces of films, and how beautifully he played his roles in these; and the things he stood for.
Apparently, as per Reddit, the director kept wanting her to look more scared in her initial scenes; explaining the horror of being kidnapped and imprisoned in her own home by a strange man. She kept pleading "But it's Robert Redford"!
If you like the espionage and unique feel of films of that era though, you can't do much better than Francis Ford Coppola's 'The Conversation', starring a wonderfully morose Gene Hackman. A very worthy Palme D'Or winner in '74.
Fred Zinnemann's 'The Day of the Jackal' in '73 is also a high-point for espionage-thrillers of the decade.
This is so essential now especially as Hollywood has become more consolidated and corporate.
[1] https://youtu.be/vZNnDiDSUiI?si=6hLz0X00uDhfVdPE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voPmfT09jlg
If you've never seen his movies, you can basically pick them at random and you'll find a good one. But All the President's Men is one of my favorite films of all time.
RIP RR
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyR7XB0VBPM
Great movie, great commentary.
Robert Redford is also the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, so getting on his bad-side is strongly career-effecting. People lived in fear of getting on this guy's bad side.
On set, he sounds like the typical Hollywood nightmare with famous clashes with his costars and directors. Arthur Laurents, the writer of The Way We Were, described Redford as an "ego maniac" and control freak for his on-set behaviors.
I say this as a leftist, but "The Truth" is liberal catering-to, and whitewashes Rathers's lack of due diligence in the Bush document, which even to a largely uniformed person like me thought, "Uh isnt that a modern font?" Dan Rather's rush to to this story is not a 'victim' but the failure of basic journalism. I dont think Rather should have resigned, but the idea that's he's this kind-hearted innocent, as the film mostly portrays him as, is just dishonesty. Rather saw money and fame in breaking a big story, and ran with it without much care.
Shrug, I've always seen his PR as very heavily manufactured and played towards the NYTimes and Variety and Sundance crowd in a very targeted way. And it worked, Redford died with an estate worth at least $200m. Capitalism gonna capitalism I guess, but the reality is Redford was quite the vindictive partisan who used his wealth and power against his perceived political enemies and whitewashed some questionable people.
But the carbon footprint of the jetset crowd is significant and worth pointing out. And, yes, how a lot of it is things like protecting wealthy-coded wildlife touristy-type areas in California and such and less effort in cleaning up factories in Alabama or India and such. Or how as a capital owning class person, he negotiated against the working class with his productions, and as such the dynamics that make Alabama and India poor, the capitalistic effect of driving down wages and the political power of these working people who want reform, well, he's part of the problem there too. He can't be both 'the boss' and a worker at the same time.
And the zero effort for him and his cohorts to fly first class instead of private jet or take a regular boat and not a mega yacht or other massive carbon producers.
But his behavior on set, his bias in "The Truth,' and his hiring policies are entirely his choice and can be made nearly entirely meritorious. He simply decided to not act meritorious.