Losing Battle Department

The picture of Robert Redford here is from the online version of the  Q & ATime Magazine recently  did, tying it to his latest directorial work  The Conspirator which comes out today. I look at his face and suppose that even the Pope would recognize it. I guess by most standards he looks great - for the fact that he’s still wearing his hair like it’s 1969 and oh those giant white teeth.It’s mostly the teeth I find jarring because teeth actually get less white the longer you trot them around in the world, not more white. Sure, lots of celebrities try to fight that fact what with veneers and all but to me they just end up looking silly.In this Time interview, the person posing the questions asks Redford if it was limiting during his early years in Hollywood to be perceived as so good-looking. He said yes.  “because when I started [in TV], that's not the way I was seen. I played all kinds of parts - killers, psychos. They were fun, real character roles. Then, when I went into film, it suddenly shifted. You're not given freedom to move out of that.”Well if he REALLY wants to ‘move out of that’ he could be more like Clint Eastwood and just let nature take its course? As it is, with that mop of Sundance Kid hair and those teeth like bathroom tiles you look at him and think only along Young vs. Old lines which is never the best way to think about  people. The way I like to think about them is "Are they still in the world  where I can write them a letter or are they gone beyond to where zip codes just can’t reach?""Are they dead or are they alive?"  is all I ask myself. And the paradox is that even with his slight stoop and his no-longer super-white teeth, Clint strikes me as a more 'alive' than Bob.and now because it's so nice to see a great director act, a clip of Clint as Walt Kowalski  in Gran Torino[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVYWxEF49PQ]