Honoring Roger Ebert, critic and fan

[Kadie]

Honoring Roger Ebert, critic and fan
Mick LaSalle, Chronicle Movie Critic

Friday, April 30, 2010

In the century or so that there has been such a thing as film criticism, no other critic has ever occupied the space held by Roger Ebert. Others as influential as Ebert have not been as esteemed. Others as esteemed as Ebert have not had the same direct and widespread influence. And no one, but no one, has enjoyed the same fame.

Or to put it another way, if Ebert were a movie, he'd be "Schindler's List" or "The Godfather" - a box office and a critical success. Andrew Sarris is one of the great critics, but the average person doesn't know his work. The late Pauline Kael was a cultural byword for many years, but only within an elite circle of readers. On the flip side, the late Bosley Crowther of the New York Times was once the most important voice on film in the country, but his work hasn't dated well. And we can all name various critics that we see on TV, some good, some bad, but no one is like Roger Ebert.

To be both extremely good and extremely popular is rare. Ebert has maintained his privileged position in American cultural life by virtue of intelligence, talent and physical energy. Those are innate gifts. But his success has also been a matter of character, with qualities like enthusiasm - and love.

Ebert will be at San Francisco's Castro Theatre on Saturday evening to accept the Mel Novikoff Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The festivities, billed as "An Evening With Roger Ebert and Friends," will include appearances by filmmakers Philip Kaufman, Errol Morris, Jason Reitman and Terry Zwigoff. And then, as is typical of Ebert, he will use his public platform to cast the spotlight on a film that deserves recognition: Erick Zonca's "Julia" (2009), a terrific character study/thriller starring Tilda Swinton that has grossed only $65,000 at the domestic box office.

snip...
But perhaps it's only recently that people have come to recognize in the acuteness of Ebert's intellectual appreciation a form of spiritual generosity. Instead of writing for the professors, he writes for the masses. Instead of acting like a big shot, he has always been a colleague. For the past few years, Ebert has had to contend with a miserable illness that has robbed him of his speech. (He talks through computer software that speaks his typed words.) But illness hasn't stopped his work, nor has it diminished its quality. My favorite of Ebert's books is his "Great Movies" series, and I look forward to the third volume, which comes out in October.

Indeed, it seems almost as if illness has released Ebert in some way, allowing him to be the tender spirit that was always there in his writing but that he could never quite show. Of course, he has bad days. Of course, he has not suddenly become a saint - life is not a movie. But I think there's an awareness out there that in honoring Ebert, the film society is not just recognizing his writing, or his TV work or his place as an American institution.

They're honoring him. They're honoring a person. They're honoring someone who truly deserves it.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/30/MVG31D5KCK.DTL#ixzz0mbx4dWEp

Roger Ebert (right, with the late Gene Siskel) will be honored by the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Photo: Disney via AP



Film critic Roger Ebert speaks at the signing for his book "Great Movies II" at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Santa Monica in 2006.

Photo: David Livingston / Getty Images



Roger Ebert

Photo: Seth Perlman / AP

[Brother Buzz]

1. This Luddite doesn't fully understand what a twitter is but I'm hooked on Ebert's

he manages to pack more relevant thought and ideas into them than anyone else.


A sage, he is. A treasure. A whit. His words always hit the target

Congratulation, Roger, you da man!

[Kadie]

3. I just checked out his twitter page.

His latest post...

Dear Mrs. Palin: I'm looking forward to your Facebook entry if the oil rigs start going down with the domino effect.

http://twitter.com/EBERTCHICAGO

[truedelphi]

2. The one quality that Lasalle did not mention was honesty.

Ebert and Siskel hailed from Chicago. They were outside of the influence of the Hollywood industry, (at least during the years when they first came to public attention.)

I can remember back in the day when they were carrying on about their favorite "great" movies. While mentioning all the usuals, one or the other of the men would pipe up about how much he really enjoyed some move that was basically soft porn. No one had done things like that back in the late seventies - this was long before the internet and before the notion that normal everyday people had porn in their lives.

They also liked to take the discussion beyond the discussion of the current week's crop of movies. One day they focused entirely on the "Great Film Trailers." Then and there, they both admitted their disgust for the more "modern" film trailers, which for whatever reason do not bother to discuss the greatness of the actors in the film, but tell and show you the whole damn plot in three extensively long drawn out minutes.

[orleans]

7. lol

"one or the other of the men would pipe up about how much he really enjoyed some move that was basically soft porn. No one had done things like that back in the late seventies"

the first thing i thought of was roger who penned the masterpiece "beyond the valley of the dolls" which was rated X! i think his movie came out in 1970 btw

[Luminous Animal]

4. Thanks for that.

I've been a decades long admirer of Mr. Ebert. I always hoped that I'd have the chance to meet him. Fortunately, my daughter when she was about age 10, had the pleasure of taking a small workshop with him. She said he was gentle, gracious, and witty.

(Mick LaSalle is quite good, too.)

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Roger is a great writer on film

And his criticism is in a league by itself. He is an asset to the film world, and to audiences everywhere.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

6. I love seeing great people receive great honors.

so cool!

:)

[SeattleGirl]

8. Roger is an icon.

Pauline Kael, on the other hand, never seemed to meet a movie she liked. Reading her reviews, I could see the nasty in her personality.

In Roger, I saw more of the everyman.

I'll take that over Kael's style any day.

[Enthusiast]

9. Roger is one of the good ones.

And brilliant ones.

[tavalon]

10. I never much cared for Ebert before

He seemed pretentious and I rarely agreed with his movie reviews. Since his illness and his prolific blog upon which he discusses many other things besides movies, I've discovered a really good man. I suspect he has always been a really good man and I just didn't see it. I'm glad I've gotten to see it before he leaves us.