Film_Fatale
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Roger Ebert, the Critic Behind the Thumb
April 13, 2008
By A. O. SCOTT
WHAT is film criticism? This may sound like a lofty philosophical question, but I suspect to most people it has a down-to-earth, empirical answer. Film criticism is two guys (and usually it is guys) arguing: shifting in their seats, rolling their eyes, pointing fingers and interrupting, and every now and then agreeing. Or that?s the way it looks on television at least.
One of the guys who made it look that way, who made the crazy idea that movie critics could thrive on TV seem like a no-brainer, recently announced his departure from the airwaves. On April 1 Roger Ebert published a letter to readers of The Chicago Sun-Times that was essentially a farewell to the long-running, widely syndicated weekly program that has made him not simply the best-known movie reviewer in America, but the virtual embodiment of this curious profession.
But the real news in Mr. Ebert?s letter was his return to regular written criticism. A recurrence of cancer of the salivary gland in the summer of 2006 might have left him unable to speak ? a problem recent surgery failed to solve ? but he has hardly lost his voice.
For his loyal readers Mr. Ebert?s resumption of reviewing (April 1 happened to be the 41st anniversary of his debut in The Sun-Times) is a chance to pick up an interrupted conversation. For those who labor beside or behind him in the vineyards of criticism it is an incitement to quit grousing and pick up the pace.
Not that any of us could hope to match his productivity. Nor could we entertain the comforting fantasy that the daunting quantity of the man?s work ? four decades of something like six reviews a week, as well as festival reports, learned essays on classic films and the occasional profile ? must entail a compromise in quality. As A. J. Liebling said of himself, nobody who writes faster can write better, and nobody better is faster. The evidence is easy enough to find: in the Web archive, in his indispensable annual movie guides and in a dozen other books.
It is this print corpus that will sustain Mr. Ebert?s reputation as one of the few authentic giants in a field in which self-importance frequently overshadows accomplishment. His writing may lack the polemical dazzle and theoretical muscle of Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, whose names must dutifully be invoked in any consideration of American film criticism. In their heyday those two were warriors, system-builders and intellectual adventurers on a grand scale. But the plain-spoken Midwestern clarity of Mr. Ebert?s prose and his genial, conversational presence on the page may, in the end, make him a more useful and reliable companion for the dedicated moviegoer.
His criticism shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique, and formidable intellectual range, but he rarely seems to be showing off. He?s just trying to tell you what he thinks, and to provoke some thought on your part about how movies work and what they can do.
He is rarely a scold, and more frequently (perhaps too frequently) an enthusiast, and nearly always enlightening, in particular when he has brought calm good sense and moral conviction to overwrought debates about hot-button movies like Oliver Stone?s ?JFK? and Spike Lee?s ?Do the Right Thing.? Other critics (Ms. Kael and Mr. Sarris most famously) have spawned schools, or at least collected bands of acolytes and imitators. Mr. Ebert ? do you mind if I just call him Roger from now on? ? has no disciples, only friends.
Here I might as well disclose, if it isn?t obvious already, that I consider myself one of them. I don?t say this to brag, or to put myself in highfalutin company, though when I visited Roger and his wife, Chaz, at their house in Chicago a few months ago I did notice framed photographs of my host with the likes of Bill Clinton, Clint Eastwood and Werner Herzog (not all at once, mind you). But my hunch is that some of Roger?s most steadfast friends are people he has never met, people whose living rooms he has graced, for more than 30 years, with his articulate, sometimes combative judgments of coming attractions.
His writing may be what makes him a great critic, but it is his long career playing a great film critic on television that has brought him fame and fortune. And it is worth pausing to appreciate ? and perhaps also to defend ? his work in that much-maligned medium, which began in 1975, when Roger and Gene Siskel, the chief movie critic at The Chicago Tribune, started a weekly program called ?Opening Soon at a Theater Near You? on the local public television station. Though they may not have intended as much, they turned what had been lonely, literary pursuit into a collaborative, antagonistic venture and a spectator sport.
Shortly thereafter the program, now called ?Sneak Previews,? went national on PBS, and in 1982 it began its long life, under various names, in commercial syndication, during which ?Siskel and Ebert? stamped into the public mind, perhaps for the first time, a picture of what film criticism looked like. When Mr. Siskel died in 1999, his place was taken by a series of guest hosts (including President Clinton, on his way out of office) until Richard Roeper, a columnist at The Sun-Times and a sharper dresser than either of the original team, was chosen as Roger?s permanent co-host.
When Roger?s surgery knocked him off the show nearly two years ago, a new round of guest critics, including me, was brought in. About my experiences, which ended when Michael Phillips of The Tribune was made Mr. Roeper?s permanent foil, I will say only that impersonating yourself on television is both more fun and more difficult, with or without the aid of thumbs, than it looks.
As the show and its fans contemplate a post-Ebert future, we should recall that TV-based movie reviewing, now such a staple of popular culture, was once a novelty. And also, for some, a menace. In ?Awake in the Dark,? an anthology of ?The Best of Roger Ebert? published by the University of Chicago Press two years ago, you will find a 1990 essay by Roger?s friend Richard Corliss of Time and (at the time) Film Comment lamenting that the noble, still-young tradition of Mr. Sarris and Ms. Kael, and of James Agee and Manny Farber too, was in danger of being permanently dumbed-down and quantified. Passionate argument and reasoned judgment, he warned, were being driven to the margins by scales of one to four stars, by opposed thumbs and sound bites.
The title of Mr. Corliss?s essay was ?All Thumbs, or, Is There a Future for Film Criticism?? This kind of rhetorical question is meant to be answered in the negative, and if the future looked grim back in 1990 ? when Entertainment Weekly?s letter grades and the proliferation of Siskel and Ebert knockoffs seemed to threaten the integrity of the critical enterprise ? what must it look like now that the Internet is gobbling up all discourse? If a star- or thumb-based rating system was the enemy of nuance and complex thought, what are we to make of the splattered fruit at rottentomatoes.com or the numerical averages at metacritic.com?
And if the print media were inhospitable then to the survival and flourishing of criticism, many of them seem now to have become actively, lethally hostile. Sean P. Means, who writes for The Salt Lake Tribune, has compiled a list of 27 critics who have, over the past year or so, been downsized, laid off, bought out or otherwise subjected to a corporate logic of streamlining and syndication. Local dailies and weeklies, increasingly enfeebled links in national chains, no longer see a need to keep employees on the payroll whose job is to see movies before everyone else does and report back knowledgeably on what they?ve seen.
Such attrition is hardly limited to movie reviewers, and it has more to do with the economics of newspapers than with the health of criticism as a cultural undertaking. If you spend time prowling the blogs, you may discover that the problem is not a shortage of criticism but a glut: an endless, sometimes bracing, sometimes vexing barrage of deep polemic, passionate analysis and fierce contention reflecting nearly every possible permutation of taste and sensibility.
It seems to me that ?Sneak Previews? and its descendants, far from advancing the vulgarization of film criticism, extended its reach and strengthened its essentially democratic character. That is not to say that chatting about a movie in front of a camera (actually three cameras), and bouncing from a scripted mini-review to improvised cross-talk, can ever achieve the depth or nuance of a polished piece of writing. (Roger has often admitted as much. When I was at his house, he scribbled a bit of wisdom on the small spiral notebook that is his main conversational vehicle these days: the gist was that when writing, you should avoid clich?, but on television you should embrace it.)
Does film criticism have a future? What is film criticism, anyway? It is, for some of us, a job, sometimes a vocation and arguably a profession.
One recent afternoon I was sitting at my computer studying old clips of Gene and Roger. After a while my daughter sat down next to me. We watched in silence for a while, and then she said: ?These guys are always fighting. Even when they both like a movie, they have to fight about why it?s good.? That may not be an exhaustive definition of criticism as a discipline or a mode of thought, but it strikes me as a pretty good summary.
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I am sorry to say, I knew Holm when he was writing for the Willamette Week and he was unfortunately one of the most unpleasant, antipathic, and antisocial persons it has ever been my misfortune to meet.
Nonetheless I will wish him the best.
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I do hope they will reissue it on DVD ASAP.
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> {quote:title=scsu1975 wrote:}{quote}
> Umm .. who's Joan Crawford?
Exactly!!
Well, should this thread catch the eye of one of the TCM programmers, I totally hope they'll consider another showing of *The Ice Follies of 1939*. I've just watched my recording of it from the last time they showed it, a few weeks ago. I'm surprised it doesn't get shown more often, it's totaly cinematic fluff in the best MGM style, but quite enjoyable and with two of the greatest Hollywood stars of all time (and with an outstanding supporting cast!).
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> {quote:title=danthemoviefan wrote:}{quote}
> Was The War Lord broadcast on TCM?
>
> Going by my old Now Playing guides, the film has aired four times. It premiered April 10, 2005, and was repeated May 7 and Dec. 15, 2005. It last aired in the wee hours of March 26, 2006.
I wonder who owns the right to that...
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> {quote:title=PrinceSaliano wrote:}{quote}
> I don't give a rat's arse what kind of a mother she was. But some ninny started an "Evil Joan Crawfotrd" thread. Some people, it seems, are unable to separate real from reel. I may not agree with the conservative politics of some actors, but I wouldn't insult their fans by creating a provocative thread.
Plus we all know these boards are meant for discussing movies, not politics -- even if the politics involve actors.
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> {quote:title=PrinceSaliano wrote:}{quote}
> Well some think she's evil.
> ;-)
Was she truly evil, or did she just know how to play evil?
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> {quote:title=dianabat wrote:}{quote}
> Film Fatale...I love you!
>
> Di
Awww, shucks, thank you
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I read some of those facts in the imdb.com bio of him. I will definitely keep an eye out for other of the movies in which he worked.
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To hopefully rein in all the redundant "OMG More Joan Crawford!" threads, let's just try to wrap it all up in one convenient thread... since presumably there will be at least one JC movie on the schedule on any given month - since this is after all a classic movie channel.
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Realizing that not everyone here has upgraded/plans to upgrade to Blu-Ray, I thought there might still be a few ppl interested in this tidbit:
*Blockbuster Blu-ray goes nationwide*
Although the number of Blockbuster locations carrying Blu-ray discs has been steadily increasing, Blockbuster has announced that they will be bringing Blu-ray to all 5,000 plus North America locations. As an additional interesting tidbit of information, all stores will have a kiosk showing Blu-ray movies on a 42" television with a visible Playstation 3 attached to remind customers that their PS3s can play Blu-ray discs.
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By some odd coincidence, I was watching my recording of *Berlin Express* earlier today, and RO happened to comment on the fact that the DP for that movie was Merle Oberon's husband, Lucien Ballard.
Funny thing, when recording *The Hawaiians* today, I noticed the DP for that one was *also* Lucien Ballard.
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Don't recall having seen this announcement before:
And Lionsgate has announced a High Noon: 2-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition for release on 6/10 (SRP $19.98).
Extras will include audio commenary with members of the cast and crew, the 50-minute Inside High Noon documentary, The Making of High Noon documentary hosted by Leonard Maltin, 2 featurettes (Behind High Noon and Tex Ritter Museuem) and video of Tex Ritter's full-length song performance. Unfortunately, no Blu-ray is forthcoming.
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I really like the RO intro for the movies showing as part of today's tribute, it is somehow very dignified that they didn't use the regular stage.
Also, good thing they put *The Hawaiians* on a 2 hr 30 min. time slot, since last time they showed it (on a 2 hr 15 min. time slot) the movie ran over. As it is, *The Buccaneer* ended almost 4 minutes after schedule.
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MH?
As in Molly Haskell?
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> {quote:title=kimpunkrock wrote:}{quote}
> Mr Moto Volume one is straight up great. It also comes with a nice little booklet and some cool extras.
>
> The transfers are pristine.
>
> I love this series.
> 'Need to get back to Costco to get VOl 2.
>
>
> God Bless Peter Lorre'
>
> -KPR
How many movies are in each set?
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If I remember correctly, the road-show version of *Hawaii* was released on laserdisc. Why couldn't the video distributors offer both versions on DVD? Even if the quality of the longer cut was a bit below par.
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> {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote}
> The picture and sound elements for the road-show version are not in the best of condition. That said, I'd prefer that they showed the road-show verion, too, in spite of the elements' failings.
Same here!
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> {quote:title=sweetsmellofsuccess wrote:}{quote}
> For those who missed Rose's comments for The Night of the Hunter during her guest programming spot in November can hear her thoughts this Saturday!! It obviously is one of her favorites (mine too).
I missed it and will definitely be watching this Saturday!
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> {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote}
> EL CID and 55 DAYS AT PEKING, though I'd expect The Weinstein Company to strike a deal, probably wiith TCM, sometime after their DVDs of each film have been in the marketplace long enough.
I would hope so, as well. After all what's good for WHV should also be good for the Weinsteins!
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> {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote}
> I do agree it may be one of his best performances. Too bad they didn't have it available for the tribute.
>
> I don't think WILL PENNY's unavailable to TCM (they've shown it before); I think that they're just ignoring it in favor of his higher-profile films.
That would make sense as well. But as to *El Cid*, I am convinced they would have shown it if they could only license it.
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Thank you for sharing, VP19!!
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Fox is now rumoured to be working on a new set of the *Planet of the Apes* movies, this time on BR (although if they restore or add new extras, presumably they could also release it on conventional DVD).
Also today, in the wake of the death of Charlton Heston, we've learned from our industry sources (and other sources as well) that Fox is currently planning to bow what would be a fitting tribute - a Blu-ray Disc box set of not just the classic Planet of the Apes feature film, but possibly all four sequels as well, sometime in the 3rd or 4th quarter of this year.
This would include at least some new featurettes and other extras. Word is Fox has even discovered the original ending from the preview cut of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. All of this would be part of a 40th anniversary celebration of the original film.
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> {quote:title=CineSage_jr wrote:}{quote}
> Heston didn't consider WILL PENNY his best film, he thought it contained what was possibly his best performance -- quite a different thing.
I do agree it may be one of his best performances. Too bad they didn't have it available for the tribute.
You learn something every day: DP Lucien Ballard
in Hot Topics
Posted
> {quote:title=lzcutter wrote:}{quote}
> FF,
>
> I have an old bio that a college friend put together on Lucien Ballard for the tribute that we helped organize for him years ago. I was surprised to see so much of it referenced on IMDB and wonder if it was written by someone who had the program from that tribute.
That would explain it!