“For a generation of Americans,” wrote President Obama on the death of Roger Ebert in April 2013, “Roger was the movies. When he didn’t like a film, he was honest. When he did he was effusive… The movies won’t be the same without Roger.” It’s hard to overestimate the cultural significance of Ebert’s work, which proved both thrillingly universal and entertainingly divisive. Having cut his teeth as a newspaper editor, Ebert became film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he wrote ahead-of-the-curve responses to cutting-edge movies such as Bonnie and Clyde. On television, he developed a combative relationship with Chicago Tribune film critic Gene Siskel, and together they pioneered the notorious ‘Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down!’ verdicts which were variously interpreted as either the scourge or saviour of modern movie-reviewing.
This terrifically life-affirming documentary from director Steve James – whose first feature, Hoop Dreams, Ebert championed – puts both sides of the argument, and unearths outtake footage which suggests that the Roger/Gene rivalry was no on-air contrivance. Elsewhere, Martin Scorsese struggles hilariously to find anything good to say about Russ Meyer’s Ebert-scripted exploiter Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, but remains a passionate advocate of Ebert’s incisive criticism, which he credits with spurring him on at key moments in his own career. Intimate footage of Ebert’s later battles with cancer (the loss of his entire lower jaw couldn’t dampen his spirits) paints a picture of a man surrounded by a loving family in whose company he found great happiness; his wife, Chaz, is a magnificent presence – an example of the best in human nature, a subject to which Ebert returned compulsively in his writing. Werner Herzog calls him “a soldier” and describes a strange epiphany when walking over his star on Hollywood Boulevard; Errol Morris wonders whether he would have had a career were it not for Ebert and Siskel’s early support. Crucially, James’s intelligent, moving film charts Ebert’s early adoption of the internet – a resource that some thought would kill film criticism, but which merely widened its scope, giving Ebert back his voice when his body failed him. Taking its title from Ebert’s bestselling memoir, this lovely, insightful film is a splendidly watchable tribute to a truly cinematic life. I laughed, I cried; I was inspired and uplifted. Thumbs Up!
