Directed by: Steve James
Roger Ebert died on April 4, 2013 after a long battle with cancer. I read his column religiously after first becoming acquainted with his writing in the early 1990's. Before that, he was one half of Siskel & Ebert, the Chicago movie critic duo who brought "two thumbs up" and "two thumbs down" to the lexicon. Ebert allowed me to view movie criticism as an art form. I wrote a tribute to him on this blog the day following his death two years ago. Most of what I said still holds true today. I never met him, but I miss him.
Life Itself, directed by Steve James, whose Hoop Dreams was championed by Siskel and Ebert twenty years ago. When Hoop Dreams was not nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, Ebert was especially upset. He criticized the nomination system relentlessly, so much so that AMPAS changed its nomination policies the following year. James was handpicked by Ebert to direct the documentary based on his best-selling memoir. The documentary has its flaws, but it ultimately provides fresh insight into the life and death of Roger Ebert.
The film opens with Roger spending Christmas 2012 in a Chicago hospital. His jaw was removed years earlier after a series of failed operations, rendering him unable to speak. A prosthetic jaw was surgically added to make it appear Ebert had a mouth (and a permanent smile), but it was strictly for aesthetic purposes. He consumed all of his meals intravenously. The winter of 2012-2013 proved especially difficult for Ebert and his family. He believed until the last weeks before his death that he would writing for a long time to come. A sad interview with Chaz (while Roger sits beside her) reveals that the couple may not have anymore fight left in them for another go-round with cancer. Nonetheless, his last written piece, published the day before his death, was called "A Leave Of Presence", in which Ebert discussed his plans for the future. One day later, he was gone. His last review of a Terence Malick film titled "To The Wonder" was published soon after. He gave the film three and a half stars.
Life Itself is at its most fascinating when it depicts Roger's fight against cancer. We see the toll it takes on him physically and his family emotionally, but he had a lot of fight. The skies of Chicago are gray a lot of the time, which adds to the somber mood. We know the outcome. Even Roger may know what eventually lies ahead. The film pulls no punches in its depiction of Ebert. We see him as the loving husband and stepfather, passionate film critic, champion of independent films and filmmakers, and as a bachelor in the 1970's who would drink heavily at the local bar and stumble home repeatedly. Roger's drinking ceased in 1979 and was in recovery for the rest of his life. Oh, and he wasn't above bringing around prostitutes to parties.
There is plenty of time devoted to Ebert's complicated relationship with his onscreen partner Gene Siskel, who himself died of brain cancer in 1999. They were crosstown newspaper rival critics who meshed well on PBS Sneak Previews in the late 1970's. Their mutual disdain and then grudging respect was evident and palpable, especially when they disagreed about a movie. They soon formed their own show in syndication, which made them household names and celebrities in their own right. Their relationship grew and softened somewhat, but never entirely. They loved each other, but would take great pains to conceal it. Siskel was 53 when he died, without fulling divulging the nature of his dire health to anyone except his wife and children. I recall feeling a great sense of loss when Siskel died, although not quite with the intensity I felt when Ebert died. Ebert himself carried on the show with guest critics and eventually permanent co-host Richard Roeper until 2006. Roeper is not interviewed in the film, which is a disappointment.
We see Ebert's wedding to Chaz, a Chicago lawyer, in 1992. They married when Roger was fifty. Why did Roger wait so long to get married? He said he didn't want to marry while his mother was still alive, although his relationship with his parents is only partially covered here, so we don't feel the full impact of his relationship with them. He was the only child of Irish-Catholic parents.
Life Itself isn't perfect, but it is a humanizing portrait of a Chicago Sun Times movie critic who transcended his role into becoming a worldwide media celebrity in his own right. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer prize and rose film criticism to an art form. In my opinion, he is the standard of film criticism and will never be duplicated. I try in my own way, but if I think I can write as well as him, then I am just kidding myself. He loved the movies, even the ones he hated, and his writing reflected that in a way that wasn't done before or since.
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