The most appropriate way to honor the memory of a filmmaker or actor who is no longer with us is to see or re-watch their films. ‘The Way We Were‘ from 1973 is one of the films that consolidated Robert Redford‘s position as a top actor and a success with the public in the generation that conquered the screens in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It is also one of his first complex roles, through which he tries to overcome the limits of the attractive young man typology, being cast in the film directed by Sydney Pollack, written by Arthur Laurents and based on a book by him and having Francis Ford Coppola as co-writer. The major challenge was the fact that his partner in this film was Barbra Streisand, an actress with a unique personality and an expressive power that risks shadowing any other actor or character with whom she happens to be in the same frame. What resulted was a meeting between two great actors that became a Hollywood legend from the day it premiered and has remained so for more than half a century.
‘The Way We Were‘ oscillates between being a romantic story turned into a drama about sentimental relationships and a political drama set in the American intellectual and cinematic milieu between the late 1930s and the early 1950s. The first meeting between the two heroes takes place during their college years. Katie Moroski is a politically engaged student, a far-left activist in the years before World War II. Hubbell Gardiner is a talented novelist, but also the type of boy without material worries, eager to live his life and taking everything easy. Katie falls in love with Hubbell, but it will be many years before their love will materialize, in the final year of the war. Everything seems to separate them. She is Jewish and politically involved, interesting but not beautiful according to the canons, takes everything seriously, maybe even too seriously, including love. He is handsome as an icon, comes from the WASP aristocracy, has no firm political beliefs, just wants to succeed in his career and live well in the American style. Love seems to overcome any obstacles for a moment, including an obvious mismatch that even the two are very aware of. Everything seems to go OK for a while, until history catches up with them.
Robert Redford makes visible efforts in this film to give consistency and depth to the character. He succeeds about 90%, in my opinion. Ryan O’Neal was originally proposed to play Hubbell Gardiner, he being at that time (after ‘Love Story’) more famous and popular. That casting did not work out, and then Laurents challenged and convinced Redford to take the role. Laurents and Pollack wanted the film to be much more political, but several test screenings with the audience convinced them to eliminate many of the scenes that were still too critical of 1950s Hollywood. The evolution of Katie and Hubbell’s relationship, however, is also linked to what was happening in the studios under the terror of ideological purges, and the result was that the romantic story doesn’t really hold up either. What remains are the masterful performances of the two main actors and the entire cast, including a very young James Woods, who had debuted a year earlier in an Elia Kazan film. After all, ‘The Way We Were‘ is still Barbra Streisand‘s film. It’s fascinating to see her or see her again after half a century, and the magnetism of the love between the two on screen remains intact. Perhaps love wins it all in the end.