If you’re my age or perhaps a little younger then you grew
up watching Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert every week talking about movies that
they had just seen. These two die hard Chicago film critics gave movies thumbs
up or thumbs down, so often that it’s become part of the way people rate movies
to this day. Siskel passed away in 1999 (can it really have been that long
ago?) while Ebert passed away in 2013. Before going though, Ebert wrote a book
about his life entitled LIFE ITSELF. Now a new documentary has been made about
him using the same title.
The film opens with a very open Ebert allowing himself to be
photographed as he was in the later years of his life, without a lower jaw.
Having succumbed to cancer in his jaw bone it was removed but not the rest of
his features. Many photos of Ebert after the surgery had his lower face covered
or wrapped. But here he wanted people to see how he was, what had happened to
him and to see a part of his life that many would consider too private. In
doing so he displayed a courage that might help someone else down the line when
it came to deciding what to do when it came to treatment.
The movie starts with images of the then fully alive Ebert
talking via computer output with film maker Steve James, a documentary director
that Ebert had a great respect for, often praising his film HOOP DREAMS.
Footage taken in the hospital where Ebert was recovering from a crack in his
femur shows the good spirits he was in at the time. It then moves into the more
standard documentary fare of showing a combination of still photos and
interviews with various friends he made as he went from a single child of
middle class parents to a well-respected editor at his college newspaper.
Having only known him as a film critics I was surprised to find out what a
journalistic background he really had.
Working at the Chicago Sun-Times he eventually found himself
as the newspaper’s film critic. This was a time when film critics were not held
in the highest esteem on the newspaper staff, but he made it his own writing
insightful reviews in a time when movies were changing and becoming more
artistic as well as entertaining. Ebert was there to cover it and eventually
involved in making a movie as well, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS directed by
Russ Myers. Hailed by some, condemned by others, the movie at least gave Ebert
the credentials of saying he had at least written a film as well as made a
career writing about them. It was while working at the Sun-Times that Ebert won
a Pulitzer for a review he had written.
Then something new came his way. In addition to writing his
column he began working on a local PBS program in Chicago where he would sit in
a director’s chair across from who most would consider his arch enemy, Gene
Siskel the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. The show was popular enough
that its budget grew and the show changed its name to SNEAK PREVIEWS, the
program most of us first remember with the pair. Each week this duo would
discuss movies that they had both seen that week and talk about whether they
liked them or not. What made the show interesting was that they two didn’t
always agree and would banter back and forth, one trying to convince the other
of what was good or bad about their choice.
Through it all Ebert remained loyal to the newspaper and the
city that he loved. After the Pulitzer he had offers to go to bigger newspapers
but he remained loyal. He also met the love of his life, Chaz. The movie
displays the incredible love that these two had for one another when they began
and that lasted until his death in 2013. Being a mixed couple they would have
to face the problems attached with that as well but they didn’t care. Nor
should anyone else. Theirs was a true love and her family found a wonderful daughter-in-law
as well as her family accepting him for the man that he was.
So other than telling us the details of his life what does
this film have to offer? In the end it offers up a picture of the man behind
the photo on his byline, of the man who created a new way of viewing critics
with his show and of the impact that he had on the lives of not just his
friends but film makers and fans around the world. It gives us a behind the
scenes looks at who and how he was as well as letting us know what he went through
in his last years.
So many critics offer a huge debt to Ebert. Many are willing
to admit that. The same goes for those film makers who realized his criticisms
were intended to hurt but to help. Even Martin Scorsese makes that clear in the
film. For those of us who write about movies he makes us want to do it better,
to be better and to help others. For someone who did what he did for well over
50 years what better legacy could he have left?
The quality of this production is tremendous. James blends
the photography done with Ebert in his last days with still photos and inserts
of Ebert’s book that apply toward what is being talked about as the film moves
forward. He draws the viewer in to the life of someone they thought they knew
and makes him an even more important figure than realized. The movie
entertains, enlightens and shows the heart behind the man that was known as
Roger Ebert. As he always said at the end of every show, I’ll see you at the
movies.
Click here to order.
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