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| Roger Ebert died April 4, 2013. |
Sometimes, I feel a little silly telling people that my
favorite writer was a film critic. Not Charles Dickens or Henry David Thoreau
or Richard Yates – though they are all great – but Chicago movie writer Roger
Ebert. Of course, those of us who read Ebert’s work every week and hung on his
every word know that he was much more than a film critic. He was a life critic,
someone who could see the logic and the flaw in any argument and always sought
to be on the side of right, whatever that was.
He died two years ago today, and each day since, it has been
difficult not to feel that I am missing something valuable from my life. His longtime
colleague and friend Richard Roeper spoke for all of us last year on the first
anniversary of Ebert’s death when he said: “What would Roger say? What would
Roger write? What would Roger’s take be? Those thoughts cross my mind nearly
every time I exit a screening.”
No one can speak for Ebert. I certainly cannot, but there
are a few things I am sure of. He would have loved 12 Years a Slave. As a fan of Michael Apted’s fabulous Seven Up series, he would have been
floored by Boyhood. He would be just
as excited as the rest of us to see Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating passion
project Silence finally make it to
screens this year. I feel certain of these things, but damn, I wish he were
around to write about them.
His work expanded on the Internet from film reviews to blog
posts and other columns, and so did the scope of his interests. As much as I
loved his reviews and his television show – At
the Movies was appointment viewing when I was in high school – I lived for
his columns on spirituality, gun violence, and American culture at large. Growing
up, I never wanted to be anything other than a writer, and Ebert’s columns
showed me all the different things being a writer could mean. It means being observant,
honest, optimistic, and most of all compassionate.
Ebert is not my favorite writer because I think he is the
best, although I would put his simple, elegant prose alongside any of the giants
of English literature. No, he is my favorite because he is the one who makes me
love what I do and makes me want to keep doing it. There is nothing in this
life I am more suited to than writing, and it was Ebert whose work convinced me
this pursuit could be more than words on a page. He showed me this could be
important and valuable, and I don’t think we can ask too much more of our
heroes.
I have told my Roger Ebert story before. You can read it in
my review of director Steve James’ great documentary on Ebert, Life Itself, which is on Netflix
Instantwatch now, by the way. So, rather than retell that, I thought I would
share some of his work that influenced me most and most changed the way I think
about movies and about life. Click on any of the below links to go and read the
piece.
Thank you, Roger, for all of it. I only wish there were
more, but I guess the same could be said about this whole crazy life of ours.
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