Life Itself (2014)

Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on July 11, 2014 @ tonymacklin.net.

Life Itself is a profile in criticism. It's a profile in courage. And it's a profile in ego.

Movie reviewer Roger Ebert plays the lead role of the courageous, driven egotist in the documentary of his own life [now on VOD].

Director Steve Jones captures the arc of Ebert's life as he looks back at Ebert's accomplishments and focuses on Ebert's struggle and battle as cancer brings it to its end.

If Life Itself were just a film about a film reviewer, it would be open to easy criticism. But since it's also about a suffering human being, it has a palpable depth that complicates one's reactions.

Overhanging everything is the painfully-vulnerable figure of a man wracked by the ravages that cost him his jaw and his ability to speak or eat. He may put his thumb up, and smile as he types words that are electronically spoken, but it's an image that is depressing, though we may try to resist pity.

Roger Ebert was a celebrity reviewer. Some avoid the limelight. He flourished in it. He was the Citizen Ebert of reviewers. For the cover of his book Roger Ebert's Book of Films, there was a picture of Ebert in a crowded theater sitting next to a photo-shopped pic of Orson Welles.

Ebert zealously promoted himself, but he also promoted movies. Perhaps his greatest contribution is that he made the average moviegoers realize that they should take movies seriously.

To paraphrase critic Pauline Kael's comment about a viewer and a musical, Ebert was the critic for those who don't like critics.

In the past, if you asked someone on the street to name a reviewer, it would probably be Ebert or no one.

The 1970s was the Golden Age of American Films. It also was the Golden Age of film criticism. Although he started writing movie reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1967, Ebert was not among the stellar vanguard of those who most influenced film criticism.

Pauline Kael, Stanley Kauffmann, John Simon, and Andrew Sarris and his eventual wife Molly Haskell were.

When Ebert died, I was surprised how few critics said that Ebert had influenced them. Kael had her "Paulettes," and Ebert had his Roger Dodgers, but they were few in number. Christy Lemire was one who was mentored by Roger, and his group at his corporation had some foot soldiers. But Ebert did not have the formidable, lasting influence of others.

If Roger Ebert hadn't been born, my life wouldn't have been any different. If James Agee or Dwight Macdonald - or even Sarris - hadn't been born, my life would be different.

I've always liked Macdonald's comment - "the reviewer says what the audience thinks; the critic says what he thinks." And I've utilized Macdonald's Masscult and Midcult. He divided culture into Masscult for the masses, high culture for art, and - most influential to me - Midcult is the phony which substitutes for the best.

To his work Agee brought an intelligence, wit, and humanism that I find singular and valuable.

Agee, beside writing remarkable film criticism, fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, wrote the screenplay of David Grubb's The Night of the Hunter (1955). Ebert wrote three screenplays for Russ Schlockmeyerster. The one that got the most attention is Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). It's a hodgepodge of everything that Meyer and Ebert could think of to throw on the screen. It may be facile fun, but it's no The Night of the Hunter.

In a way Life Itself is a Beyond the Valley for Jones and Ebert. It's a love story, hospital drama, brotherly feud, poor-boy-makes-good fable, character study, homage, elegy, and scrap book.

When it's at its best, Life Itself is surprising. The scenes of Siskel and Ebert, during the making of their tv show, and their childish, spiteful squabbling is a hoot. It's also interesting to see Siskel push Ebert's buttons. The show's female producer says, "He (Ebert) was a real big baby when he didn't get what he wanted."

My friend David Elliott, retired movie critic of the Chicago Daily News, USA Today, and the San Diego Union-Tribune, told me about working at the Sun-Times and witnessing Roger in action. "I remember - this was after his Pulitzer and early tv success - Ebert repeatedly rising from his desk in a crowded room, after filing quickly written pieces, to shout at his editor, 'Hey, Jean, wasn't that a good piece?' She, being a warmly maternal (and savvy) editor, told him it was. But you know, that naked need for support was also the fuel that drove him, from one success to another."

It's a cultural crime that Elliott isn't doing criticism any more.

In Life Itself directors Marty Scorsese and Werner Herzog give heartfelt statements about how Ebert emotionally affected them. They give the film stature.

I never used a thumb in a review. Kept it on the coffee cup.

But Roger Ebert knew how to play the game. He (at times with Siskel) became the King of Ad quotes in the newspaper and on tv. As such the studios wined and dined him and took him on international junkets, because they thought a positive quote from Ebert and Siskel was gold for the box office.

How does one keep that exalted position?

Today Ebert has spawned a passel of lesser flacks - "Best picture I saw today. An Instant classic."

We can thank him for influencing audiences to participate in movies. But a thumb - no matter how golden - is still a thumb.

© 2000-2023 Tony Macklin