Robert Redford, the big-screen charmer turned Oscar-winning director whose hit movies often helped America make sense of itself and who, off screen, evangelized for environmental causes and fostered the Sundance-centered independent film movement, died early Tuesday morning at his home in Utah. He was 89.

His death, in the mountains outside Provo, was announced in a statement by Cindi Berger, the chief executive of the publicity firm Rogers & Cowan PMK. She said he had died in his sleep but did not provide a specific cause. He was in “the place he loved surrounded by those he loved,” the statement said.

With a distaste for Hollywood’s dumb-it-down approach to moviemaking, Redford typically demanded that his films carry cultural weight, in many cases making serious topics like grief (fami

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