The legendary film critic Roger Ebert is remembered in the documentary ‘Life Itself’. You will also remember this fantastic review of the film by Eric Shapiro.
I miss Roger Ebert.
Major new films will land and I’ll wonder what he would have thought of them. Boyhood‘s the one that’s out now that I bet he would have been going crazy over. Unlike most critics (or perhaps every critic but him), he wasn’t a marginal player in film culture. He was central. He generated controversy by befriending stars and filmmakers. But as the extraordinary new documentary on Ebert’s life, Life Itself, points out, there’s a longstanding historical custom of artists and critics traveling in the same circles, for whatever their distinct points of entry, they all share the same passions.
Passion is the defining feature of Ebert’s life, and of this film. If you knew him only from the TV show with Gene Siskel, you might have been too distracted by the man’s bland exterior and the thumbs-up/thumbs-down format to see the impassioned soul warrior residing within. You had to follow his writing to get that side. And it was incredible writing: addictive, propulsive, clear, down-to-Earth, brimming with wisdom, often poignant or funny, and always possessed of a Midwestern plainness that somehow worked entirely in its favor. He was with the people. His fellow critics weigh in about him here onscreen, and all of them are excellent writers (in some technical respects, superior to Ebert) who, whatever their strengths, can’t dream of approaching his purity of insight. It’s a fascinating discussion: truth vs. technique, insight vs. aesthetics. Ebert’s formidable, Pulitzer Prize-winning skill was soaked through with truth and insight. That put him at the top of his field. There’s simply no one else like him.
What struck me the most about Ebert’s life — from his enchanted Urbana, Illinois, childhood; to his run as a phenom newspaper editor; to his darks days of alcoholism; to his ascent to TV stardom and being the top movie critic in the world; to his marriage to force-of-nature Chaz Ebert…and at last (documented with breathtaking candidness) to his protracted battle with cancer and the loss of his ability to eat, drink, or speak — is how much gratitude the man possessed in his human state. He relished life. Relished words, language, cinema, travel, culture, ritual, music. To even think of Roger Ebert is to buckle with a feeling of love. Not long ago, I came upon the simple yet profound life lesson that one needn’t force charity and compassion to be a good person; one indeed must merely imbue one’s actions with love. In other words, if you make sandwiches, make ’em with love. Roger Ebert is the epitome of this ethic. It’s no accident that his blog, which he committed himself to with fury upon losing his speech, had the kindest, warmest, most insightful and respectful crowd of talkbackers in the known universe, as they were called there to be in the radiance of Ebert’s love, and civility was the only natural form of conduct.
The film spends a great deal of time on his genuinely abrasive relationship with Gene Siskel, which makes for a lot of laughs and an almost alarming degree of discomfort. We see behind-the-scenes clips of them insulting and one-upping each other between takes, and there’s at least one moment where it looks like Ebert’s got murder behind his gaze. Siskel is an equally fascinating character, and it’s marvelous to see him push Ebert’s buttons with an impeccably controlled surface calmness. Interestingly, I’ve long maintained that the brilliant and inscrutably compelling Siskel was the inferior critic, which speaks straight to the power of their program; it was hard not to take sides and get involved in their battles. As time went on, the men’s real-life relationship deepened, and we’re touched by how their mutual antipathy was at last outdone by their mutual need. They were put here on Earth to drive each other crazy.
And if I’m to take this review in a spiritual direction, I may as well throw in a moment of quantum physics: Because it occurred to me while watching Life Itself that the span of Ebert’s film critic career, which started in 1967 (just in time for Bonnie and Clyde and 2001: A Space Odyssey — lucky bastard) and ended with his death in 2013, covered an era in cinema that was so distinctive that it’s almost impossible to imagine Ebert living beyond it. He was there, of course, for the golden 70s, then through the indie-auteur boom that caught fire in the 90s, then into the beginning of the Youtube/smartphone/Funny or Die/Kickstarter/PPV/China’s-devouring-the-multiplex transition we’re living through now. For those who love cinema to death, this transition’s mind-blowing. We’re crossing from an age where filmmakers who once defined our culture (among them David Lynch, John Waters, John Landis, Spike Lee, Paul Schrader…) have either stopped making films or sought crowdfunding to get them made, where the newly digital nature of the medium has eroded profits and exploded piracy, where cinema itself is less culturally urgent than social media and texting, and where booming overseas markets have inspired Hollywood studios to stop furnishing their product primarily for American audiences. Though I would have loved to learn more of Ebert’s thoughts on these changes, it’s entirely fitting that he departed before they gained their current momentum.
For a man’s work isn’t merely an appendage to a man’s being. A man’s work is a man’s being. Roger Ebert was cinema. A particle shift in the state of the art was bound to occur simultaneously with Ebert’s passing. I’m so sad he’s gone. And so happy this incredible movie is here to capture him.
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