With a very heavy heart I post this story about a hero of mine, the last story I will most likely post about him. He was man I have
watched, read and listened to for over thirty years. Roger Ebert died today at 70 years
old. A legend in the business he shaped the face of film criticism. He was one of a kind. He had no equal. His love of film was evident in his articles, reviews, books, interviews, blogs and TV shows.
After battling disfiguring cancer he returned to action, stronger than ever. Writing reviews, starting blogs, twitter accounts, producing a new film critique show and even continuing to run a film festival that bared his name. Just one day before he died Roger announced he had discovered he had new cancer in his bones, but STILL would not quit. He announced he would be taking a "leave of presence." He wrote, "What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away.
My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the
rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me.
What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized
about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review."
I remember watching him on a 13-inch black and white TV with rabbit
ears in my bedroom as a kid. Years later I met him at the Toronto Film
Festival and was lucky enough to shake hands with him. He has been a
role model for me as a movie fan and writer. We lost a great mind and a great man.
Rest in peace, Roger. I will miss you.
Just a few great Roger Ebert quotes:
“No good film is too long and no bad movie is short enough.”
“She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my
love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is
where I seemed to be heading,” he wrote about wife Chaz Hammelsmith.
“Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me
as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain
letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers
of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online
community.”
“My newspaper job … is my identity.”
“Kindness covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them
out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have
done something to make others a little happier, and something to make
ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make
others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all
crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true
no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.
I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it
out.”
“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”
“Years from now it is quite possible that ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ will be seen as the definitive film of the 1960s.”
“Every great film should seem new every time you see it.”
“No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.”
“To say that George Lucas cannot write a love scene is an understatement; greeting cards have expressed more passion.”
“If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn't.”
“I've been around a long time, and young men, if there is one thing I
know, it is that the only way to kiss a girl for the first time is to
look like you want to and intend to, and move in fast enough to seem
eager but slow enough to give her a chance to say ‘So anyway ...’ and
look up as if she's trying to remember your name.”
"…thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies."
Roger's last article posted on the Sun Times website just two days before he died
Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film
critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and
columns and even written to me since that time. Others were introduced
to my film criticism through the television show, my books, the website,
the film festival, or the Ebert Club and newsletter. However you came
to know me, I'm glad you did and thank you for being the best readers
any film critic could ask for.
Typically,
I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are carried by
Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year, I wrote the
most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post or two a
week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which is why
I'm taking what I like to call "a leave of presence."
What in the
world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent
is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a
talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What's
more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about
doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.
At the same
time, I am re-launching the new and improved Rogerebert.com and taking
ownership of the site under a separate entity, Ebert Digital, run by me, my beloved wife, Chaz, and our brilliant friend, Josh Golden of Table XI.
Stepping away from the day-to-day grind will enable me to continue as a
film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and roll out other projects
under the Ebert brand in the coming year.
Ebertfest, my annual film festival, celebrating its 15th year, will
continue at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, my alma
mater and home town, April 17-21. In response to your repeated requests
to bring back the TV show "At the Movies," I am launching a fundraising
campaign via Kickstarter in the next couple of weeks. And gamers beware,
I am even thinking about a movie version of a video game or mobile app.
Once completed, you can engage me in debate on whether you think it is
art.
And I continue to cooperate with the talented filmmaker
Steve James on the bio-documentary he, Steve Zaillian and Martin
Scorsese are making about my life. I am humbled that anyone would even
think to do it, but I am also grateful.
Of course, there will be
some changes. The immediate reason for my "leave of presence" is my
health. The "painful fracture" that made it difficult for me to walk has
recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with
radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies
as I used to. I have been watching more of them on screener copies that
the studios have been kind enough to send to me. My friend and colleague
Richard Roeper and other critics have stepped up and kept the newspaper
and website current with reviews of all the major releases. So we have
and will continue to go on.
At this point in my life, in addition
to writing about movies, I may write about what it's like to cope with
health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really
stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days
in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability
that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie
so good it transports me beyond illness.
I'll also be able to
review classics for my "Great Movies" collection, which has produced
three books and could justify a fourth.
For now, I am throwing
myself into Ebert Digital and the redesigned, highly interactive and
searchable Rogerebert.com. You'll learn more about its exciting new
features on April 9 when the site is launched. In addition to housing
an archive of more than 10,000 of my reviews dating back to 1967 we will
also feature reviews written by other critics. You may disagree with
them like you have with me, but will nonetheless appreciate what they
bring to the party. Some I recruited from the ranks of my Far Flung
Correspondents, an inspiration I had four years ago when I noticed how
many of the comments on my blog came from foreign lands and how
knowledgeable they were about cinema.
We'll be recruiting more
critics and it is my hope that some of the writers I have admired over
the years will be among them. We'll offer many more reviews of Indie,
foreign, documentary and restored classic revivals. As the space between
broadcast television, cable and the internet morph into a hybrid of
content, we will continue to spotlight the musings of Pulitzer
Prize-winning TV critic Tom Shales, as well as the blog "Scanners" by
Jim Emerson, who I first met at Microsoft when he edited Cinemania. The
Ebert Club newsletter, under editor Marie Haws of Vancouver, will be
expanded to give its thousands of subscribers even bigger and better
benefits.
For years I devoutly took every one of my tear sheets, folded them and
added them to a pile on my desk. The photo above shows the height of
that pile in 1985 as it appeared on the cover of my first book about the
movies published by my old friends John McMeel and Donna Martin of
Andrews & McMeel. Today, because of technology, the opportunities to
become bigger, better and reach more people are piling up too. The fact
that we're re-launching the site now, in the midst of other challenges,
should give you an idea how important Rogerebert.com and Ebert Digital
are to Chaz and me. I hope you'll stop by, and look for me. I'll be
there.
So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies.
