Talking Shop: Robert Redford

Hollywood legend Robert Redford has seen the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah go from strength to strength since he first founded it in 1978.

Robert Redford finds the fascination with celebrity a waste of time

In full swing for another year, the festival is now regarded as the world's leading showcase for independent film attracting an estimated 50,000 people including major stars and film-makers.

The actor and director spoke to the BBC's Tom Brook about celebrity, the writers' strike and the US presidential campaign.

---

I've been reading press reports that the writers' strike is helping Sundance because it's brought more distributors and buyers here. Do you think it's true?

It's one of those accidents of fortune I guess. I think that's true, yes. There are more buyers here because there's a certain amount of desperation for product.

I know there's going to be more attendance by artists and I know there's going to be a lot more writers up here, because they've got nothing else to do or nowhere to go.

How concerned are you by the writers' strike?

Well I guess I'm old fashioned or primitive in my response to that. I'm always going to be on the side of the artist because of the long history of the battleground between the merchant and the artist.

And usually it's the artist who gets pushed aside or gets the poor treatment. They become the slave labourer but there would be no movie if it wasn't for the talent, so I'm going to be on that side.

When you see the large bosses, particularly now that the film business is being taken over more and more by corporate bosses from other areas of corporate America who don't understand film, it gets worse.

It gets hard, because they just look at the bottom line, and their whole mentality is the bottom line. That's tough on art. So I'm on the side of the writers.

In Britain right now the tabloid press are totally consumed with Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears. How concerned are you about celebrity journalism?

Sure. Yeah, but it's a reality, it's not a happy one, because it's shallow, is that going to move our lives forward in any way?

This is hard for me to say, I feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot here, but I was never really too big on behaving like a celebrity, I wanted to have a life.

But when I see young people almost being forced into the business of themselves to succeed, it's because of this fascination with celebrities. It's shallow but it's always been there.

There are more important issues to be talking about, and I think if they could put the focus they put on celebrity on issues that really affect our lives, it could be a lot better, but I don't think it's going to change.

I find celebrity a waste of time, the obsession with it is a waste of time.

But you have benefited from the interest in celebrity, particularly when you were younger, haven't you?

Well to a degree, yes sure. I mean just because of your looks you were positioned in a certain way, it sometimes got in the way of work I wanted to do or to be taken seriously, but I'm sure it had some benefit.

One final question, I don't want to pin you down politically, but do you think a Democrat can get into the White House - there are people who say America isn't prepared to elect either an African-American man or a woman.

I don't know, time will tell, I think the fact that these two names - an African-American and a woman - are in the contest and the high level they're at is a very positive sign, and a positive sign that again, there's some change in the air.

Where that goes, I have no idea. Whether they're electable, I have no idea. Whether they're going to win I have no idea. I do think a Democrat can win the White House because America is pleading with someone other than what we've had to get in there?

I don't think the person who's going to come in is going to get there by following the path of the current administration because it's been such a disaster. And it's disgraced and damaged so many Americans. But whether a Democrat can ever get together to win is another issue.

I think it's more than possible. And I think the country would like to see a change and probably would like to see a Democrat, I don't see a Republican party saying anything new or doing anything different and if they're going to just keep pumping the old gas pump and saying the same stuff, they're not going to get it.

The Sundance Film Festival runs until 27 January.