R.I.P. Roger Ebert

As a lover of films, I’ve had a bug in the back of my mind for the past few years that would occasionally ask, “What happens when Roger Ebert doesn’t review anymore?” It was one of those questions I’d rather not have answered, like what happens when Letterman’s not on TV anymore or when Mel Brooks is no longer around. I always figured it would leave a void in the movie world that would not be easily filled. Ebert was a unique soul.

It’s not that there’s no one left who knows how to write about film, but I don’t think there’s anyone, save maybe Quentin Tarantino, who outright loves movies as much as Ebert did. His thumbs-up reviews far outnumbered his thumbs-down ones, not because he was too connected to the movie business to be impartial, but because he gave every film the benefit of the doubt.

His negative reviews are so famous because every movie he hated had to work pretty hard to earn his hatred. Many of his bad reviews are memorable because the movies in question are not merely bad; they have betrayed him, whether it be morally (the exploitative and artless rape-revenge thriller I Spit on Your Grave) or artistically (his review of A Place for Lovers is an all-time standout). I never did quite understand his outrage at Rob Reiner’s North, which seemed to me a benign failure, yet prompted what is probably his most famous putdown (“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie.”).

Ebert taught me how to watch a movie, more than any critic or writer on film has ever done. He was a keen observer of the things that make movies into movies, and I have cited his movie glossary liberally. I’m especially grateful for the Law of Economy of Characters, which has been the key to solving every lazy mystery thriller ever made. Aside from criticism, Ebert wrote one of the funniest satires I’ve ever seen, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which was not quite a trash film, not quite a parody, but a gleeful celebration of every ridiculous convention of exploitation filmmaking at its finest.

He was adept at seeing a movie on its own terms, according to the filmmaker’s logic rather than conventional logic. He understood that a movie needs only to play fairly by its own rules (and that many movies even fail at that). He was the sort of critic who could convincingly give a four-star review to Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers remake right alongside Goodfellas.

Even after making a life out of watching movies—he claims to have watched 500 last year—Ebert never seemed to grow weary, even of the bad ones. He was a movie lover first, and a critic second; he didn’t so much pick apart the movies as he did teach us how to love them in the same way that he did, if they were worth it. He fought for cinema as a medium of great art when it has been constantly in danger of falling to the makers of “accessible” mass-produced junk. He’d often quote an exchange with a moviegoer about Bergman’s Cries & Whispers:

Ebert: “I think it is the best film of the year.”
Moviegoer: “Oh, that doesn't sound like anything we'd want to see!” 

He’s been a staunch defender of great films that might otherwise have been off-putting to the general public, or might be labeled “long” (read: over two hours) or “depressing” (read: a movie without a happy storybook ending). “No good movie is too long,” he said. “No bad movie is too short.” He also believed that “no good movie is depressing,” while “all bad movies are depressing.” His work may be part of the reason why intelligent movies like Django and Argo are making the most money nowadays, while brainless supposed crowd-pleasers are gradually marginalized.

His editor, Jim Emerson, reports that the last review he submitted was of Terrence Malick’s new film To the Wonder (“which—spoiler warning—he liked quite a lot”).  Ebert leaves behind him a guide for the entire 20th century of film, and I believe he’s written everything we need to know about the 21st too. But when that Malick review comes and goes, for every film to come there will be an empty space where Ebert’s review used to be.



Below is a collection of his work that I found particularly inspiring, insightful, or just plain amusing. I’ve left out many of the bad reviews, since those have already been helpfully collected in three very entertaining books (along with the bizarre saga of his feud with Vincent Gallo over The Brown Bunny). This is what Roger Ebert was to me:

Speed 2: Cruise Control.  I believe Ebert was the sole dissenter on this one.  I didn't agree, but his reasons for liking it are better than the movie itself:

I love going into a theater for a sneak preview of a summer movie and buying popcorn and settling back in my seat and enjoying a movie containing:

* A chainsaw.

* An explosive device with a red digital read-out that nobody will ever be able to see (this one is concealed inside a fake golf club).

* A villain who travels with jars of leeches, to suck the copper poisoning from his blood.
...
Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure. And so, on a warm summer evening, do I.  

Basic Instinct 2. I suspect that this might be the most fun he ever had writing a review, and his opening paragraph denotes what is pretty much the thesis of this blog.

Here is a movie so outrageous and preposterous it is either (a) suicidal or (b) throbbing with a horrible fascination. I lean toward (b). It's a lot of things, but boring is not one of them. I cannot recommend the movie, but ... why the hell can't I? Just because it's godawful? What kind of reason is that for staying away from a movie? Godawful and boring, that would be a reason.

feardotcom.  Here is a Ringu rip-off that was shot, canned and released in a hurry to beat the American remake to the box office, with a screenplay that doesn't make sense.  But the director is William Malone, who's a supremely talented but mostly unrecognized veteran of the horror business.  Ebert is perceptive enough to see greatness even when the film is pretty good at hiding it.

This is a movie that cannot be taken seriously on the narrative level. But look at it. Just look at it. Wear some of those Bose sound-defeating earphones into the theater, or turn off the sound when you watch the DVD. If the final 20 minutes had been produced by a German impressionist in the 1920s, we'd be calling it a masterpiece.

The Case Against David Lynch.  Ebert was a notable detractor of the early work of Lynch, who's one of the greatest cinematic artists working.  I can't find a review of Eraserhead, but he refers to it favorably in other reviews.  He hated The Elephant Man (as did I), as well as Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart (I did not).  He summed up his disappointment with Lynch as such:

"Wild at Heart" is a cinematic act of self-mutilation, a film that mocks itself. Show-biz executives have a cynical shorthand formula for commercial success: "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll."
...
If Lynch were merely providing us with these commodities, he would merely be an exploitation filmmaker. But he is not a minor talent; he is a gifted director with a strong sense of style. If he allowed himself a more positive vision - if he dared to believe in people - he could be a great film artist. But he is infected with self-doubt and cynicism, and he believes the worst of his audiences, so he makes films inspired by his despair.

I generally disagree with Ebert here; while Velvet and Wild are certainly satirical and for the most part fairly emotionally distant, I believe that's the point, and they're still notable and compelling films in and of themselves.  But what's interesting is that Lynch seemed to take his advice.  His later work has proven to be his warmest and most emotionally connected, and his best: what we remember is not the absurdity or the violence, but the desperate need for escape from Bill Pullman in Lost Highway, the betrayal of the mysterious brunette in Mulholland Dr., the vulnerability of Laura Dern in Inland Empire.  Two of Lynch's more recent films, The Straight Story and Mulholland Dr., received four-star reviews.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Some movies are obviously great. Others gradually thrust their greatness upon us. When "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" was released in 1987, I enjoyed it immensely, gave it a favorable review and moved on. But the movie continued to live in my memory. Like certain other popular entertainments ("It's a Wonderful Life," "E.T.," "Casablanca") it not only contained a universal theme, but also matched it with the right actors and story, so that it shrugged off the other movies of its kind and stood above them in a kind of perfection. This is the only movie our family watches as a custom, most every Thanksgiving.

This is my favorite movie, for the same reason.  Ebert is also right about its late star, John Candy, who's never been better than as Del Griffith, the overbearing but genuine shower curtain ring salesman.  He describes his impression of the real-life Candy:

People loved him, but he didn't seem to know that, or it wasn't enough. He was a sweet guy and nobody had a word to say against him, but he was down on himself. All he wanted to do was make people laugh, but sometimes he tried too hard, and he hated himself for doing that in some of his movies. I thought of Del. There is so much truth in the role that it transforms the whole movie. [Director John] Hughes knew it.

The movie's final image, which simply consists of John Candy smiling, is permanently etched in my mind.

Ikiru.  Kurosawa's best film, the story of an old man meditating on the meaning of his life as he is dying of cancer, mourning the emptiness of his life, and finally, gaining the determination to make something of it.  It's the most insightful film that's ever been made about death.

It is not so bad that he must die. What is worse is that he has never lived. "I just can't die -- I don't know what I've been living for all these years," he says to the stranger in the bar. He never drinks, but now he is drinking: "This expensive saki is a protest against my life up to now."
...
The scenes of his efforts do not come in chronological order, but as flashbacks from his funeral service. Watanabe's family and associates gather to remember him, drinking too much and finally talking too much, trying to unravel the mystery of his death and the behavior that led up to it. And here we see the real heart of the movie, in the way one man's effort to do the right thing can inspire, or confuse, or anger, or frustrate, those who see it only from the outside, through the lens of their own unexamined lives.
...
I saw "Ikiru" first in 1960 or 1961. I went to the movie because it was playing in a campus film series and only cost a quarter. I sat enveloped in the story of Watanabe for 2 1/2 hours, and wrote about it in a class where the essay topic was Socrates' statement, "the unexamined life is not worth living."' Over the years I have seen "Ikiru" every five years or so, and each time it has moved me, and made me think. And the older I get, the less Watanabe seems like a pathetic old man, and the more he seems like every one of us.