When Robert Redford passed away, the world lost more than an actor, director and Hollywood legend. It lost a conscience that, for over six decades, insisted that cinema could do more than entertain. He believed films could hold a mirror to society, exposing corruption, defending democracy and preserving the sanctity of the natural world.

I remember watching his film ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ at Capri cinema in Karachi as a teenager in the 1970s. At that time in Pakistan, Hollywood films had local Urdu names given to attract movie goers, and this film’s Urdu title was ‘Hum Sub Chore Hein’ (All of us are thieves). With its signature opening line of the famous song ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’ with Paul Newman riding a bicycle carrying his love interest, the film is still etched in my mind.

I admired him for his golden looks and star power, but his true gift that I came to know much later was something deeper: the ability to turn cinema into a moral dialogue with his nation. For Pakistan, his life and work offer not just nostalgia for cinephiles but lessons that speak directly to our own struggles with politics, media, and the environment. Born in 1936 in California, Redford grew up in modest circumstances. The world was still scarred by fascism and alive with debates on socialism and American power. These encounters sharpened his scepticism of triumphalism and gave him a sensitivity to democracy’s fragility.

By the time he entered the film industry, the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the Watergate scandal were reshaping the national mood in America. Where many of his Hollywood contemporaries avoided politics, Redford embraced it, weaving his convictions into his career and his art.

In 1972, his role as Bill McKay in ‘The Candidate’ revealed the emptiness at the heart of modern politics. McKay, an idealist coaxed into running for the Senate, begins with passion for civil rights and social justice. But as handlers sculpt him into a polished product, his authenticity is consumed. When he wins, his whispered line –........

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