Film criticism’s most poignant voice, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert, has passed away. He had been battling various cancers of the throat for some time.
After multiple surgeries to remove the cancer, he survived, but he lost his ability to speak.
After years of “Siskel & Ebert At the Movies” and then “Ebert & Roeper At the Movies,” Roger Ebert could not speak.
But through his columns and his online journal, he maintained his voice.
On April 2nd, Ebert posted on his online journal that he was taking “a leave of presence.”
After his most prolific year of writing, Ebert was finally going to settle down and ease his workload.
“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,” he said.
He described all the great things he had planned for his website, the continuation of his film festival Ebertfest, a documentary about his life by Martin Scorsese and sadly, a resurgence of cancer.
Not even this could extinguish his gusto for film, his life and his work. He often felt that his life and his work were one and the same.
With a little bit more news, he ended his reflection on a simple note.
“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,” he said.
Two days later, on April 4th, he died.
According to his wife, Chaz, they were about to return home for hospice care when Roger looked at her, smiled and passed away.
“[There was] no pain, no struggle, just a quiet, dignified transition,” she said.
Forty-six years ago and almost exactly to the day, Roger Ebert started doing film criticism for the Chicago Sun-Times, a small Chicago newspaper.
A little less than ten years later, Ebert broke ground for film and aspiring film critics and won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
He was the first film critic to do so.
It was no surprise that he won.
His narrative voice exuded his love and passion for film. When describing Rob Reiner’s 1994 film, North, Ebert could not contain his disdain for the movie.
“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it,” he said.
Even when he disagreed with a majority opinion on such films as Fight Club, the Usual Suspects, Speed 2: Cruise Control, he always defended his opinion and made reasonable arguments.
Ebert especially enjoyed writing longer essays about great movies after he became a little bored with his standard criticism.
His Great Movies series of essays has been printed in three books.
He had also published a book about Martin Scorsese, collections of his four star ratings, collections of his most hated movies, some fiction, as well as a memoir entitled Life Itself.
He had a sharp wit and a sharp mind.
After seeing a poorly edited version of Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny and getting involved in a war of words with him, Ebert replied to one of Gallo’s attacks with the comment that watching a video of his colonoscopy was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.
When Rob Schneider attacked Patrick Goldstein’s credentials and qualifications, namely his lack of a Pulitzer Prize, after the LA Times critic gave Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo a poor review, Ebert wrote in defense of Goldstein.
“Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize… As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks,” he said.
Jack Nicholson once described the acting world in terms of the death of famed actor Marlon Brando.
“When Marlon dies, everyone moves up one.”
Well film critics, sadly, you may all move up one now.
