You go to the movies, and your review must admit that it was you who was there, and it's you who's writing the review, and it's you who has the feelings. You shouldn't try and be a ventriloquist and say things that you think the readers want to hear, things that you think you should say or stay away from things if you think you shouldn't say them. You have to actually deal with the immediate experience that you had.\
In a nutshell, this is Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert's philosophy when it comes to reviewing movies. It is his interpretation of a quote, from a book called ""The Immediate Experience"" by Robert Warshaw, which he put above his typewriter when he first started critiquing films: ""A man goes to the movies, and the critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man.""
""Well, of course, the critic could also be a woman, so [Warshaw] was a sexist pig, but apart from that. . ."" Ebert joked.
This should offer a taste of why Ebert is the highest regarded film critic in the United States, something that he tends to humbly dismiss. I had the honor of interviewing him last Friday when he came to Madison for the Wisconsin Film Festival. Here is a man who has the extensive knowledge of a scholar but the accessibility and amiability of a true movie buff, and this enthusiasm manifests itself into every movie review, essay and interview he writes.
Although he is most famous for his television show ""Siskel & Ebert"" (which, after Gene Siskel's death in 1999, is now ""Ebert & Roeper"") and its use of the ""Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down"" system of recommendation, his witty, enjoyable reviews reveal a far more accurate impression of why he is so popular. His opinions are modest, yet often extremely blunt, and whether you agree or emphatically disagree with them, you have to admire how artfully and lucidly he makes his arguments. In his own words, ""it's not a science—it's an art.""
""The film critic should give you some idea of what the movie is about, not just in terms of its subject but in terms of its style and how it might hope to make you feel, and the critic must give you this idea usefully enough that you can decide whether or not you want to see the movie or not, regardless of whether the critic likes it or not,"" Ebert said. ""The critic should also be an entertainer in that the review should not be necessarily fun to read, but interesting to read, well-written. It's a personal essay.""
As an aspiring director and film critic, I would credit Ebert as the primary influence on my appreciation of cinema and thus my career goals. I remember receiving one of his movie yearbooks for Christmas when I was in fifth grade and almost immediately starting to write reviews in my spare time. In fact, I sent him a fan letter that same year, and although I don't remember exactly what I wrote, I'm pretty sure I continually referred to ""True Lies"" as the best movie of all time.
Now I've interviewed a few people in the last few years, ranging from various independent filmmakers to Gov. Jim Doyle to Australian penis puppeteers, but never somebody whose accomplishments I am so familiar with. Apart from his prolific film criticism, which he's been doing since 1967, Ebert was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize and receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was the screenwriter of three Russ Meyer cult classics, completed DVD commentaries for such films as ""Casablanca"" and ""Dark City,"" and convinced Oprah Winfrey to go into syndication (which made her the most successful woman in the United States). That barely even scratches the surface of his seemingly endless list of achievements.
It was a considerable challenge to condense a lifetime's amount of questions into a half-hour interview, so my questions spanned a variety of topics without much organizational rhyme or reason. I could've spent all day trading tidbits and going off on tangents about everything from Oscar snubs to the cynical politics of ""The Life of David Gale"" with him—perhaps I should've conducted the interview in Four Star Video Heaven (which is one of Ebert's ten favorite video stores).
Using my patented interviewing style of random questions punctuated with ""ums"" and ""ahs,"" I received spirited, astute comments, some of which I predicted beforehand. For example, I knew Ebert felt that ""High Noon"" was overrated, that he ticked off Rob Schneider with his zero-star review of ""Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,"" that he ardently supports independent directors like David Gordon Green and Nicole Holofcener, and his contentiously outspoken thoughts regarding the hypocrisy of the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings system, particularly its unwillingness to create a successful ""adults-only"" rating that wouldn't carry the stigma of the X or NC-17.
I was noticeably nervous before the interview, and it certainly felt surreal for a bit, but once we got going, I became quite comfortable. As understandably tired as he was from being shuttled all around Madison (I overheard that he was going to pencil in a nap after the current round of interviews, and at one point when referring to William Hurt's performance in ""A History of Violence,"" he cracked me up by saying Hurt ""took ass"" instead of ""kicked ass""), Ebert gave eloquent, thoughtful answers on every topic I brought up. He spoke with authority but without a hint of condescension or stuffiness, his pleasant demeanor clearly exposing his utter passion when discussing any and all things film. His spontaneous comments were as literate and droll as his myriad reviews, as he was equally willing to discuss his affection for Kubrick's ""2001: A Space Odyssey"" as he was describing the ""hysterical grandeur"" of ""Basic Instinct 2's"" awfulness.
Ebert does not harbor overly romantic notions of film critics' collective influence on what movies people choose to see, noting, ""I think most people make up their minds based on advertising campaigns and on fairly superficial television entertainment programs"" before adding, ""There are people who think that ‘Ebert & Roeper' is not terrifically deep, and I'm sure they're right, but at least we say if we think the movie is bad, or good, and we try to justify. . .and defend our opinion. . .most of the rest of the coverage on television is simply infotainment.""
When I asked him why many terrible films end up making significantly more money than even the most popular critical darlings make, his answer was frank: ""Because most people do not have very evolved tastes. You don't have to be really smart to go to a horror movie and see some people cut up for a couple of hours, but you may need to have a little imagination and a little more willingness to be challenged in order to see more serious films, and basically, in popular culture in general, lower tastes make more money than more evolved tastes.""
Even when I hit upon a question he's undoubtedly heard dozens of times, his reply was clever and agile. ""It would be a very stupid person to never change his mind. People always ask a film critic, ‘Have you ever changed your mind on a movie?' as if somehow you've lost your virginity if the answer is yes. I would hope that I would be able to look at a movie after 10 or 20 years and see things in it that I couldn't see before. I would hope that I had changed enough myself in that period of time to be able to bring something else to the movie.""
When I asked him a fluff question about what he likes to do in his spare time apart from movie-related activities, he mentioned spending time with family, traveling and reading before saying, ""I like to look at movies in my spare time.""
Look at his hilarious script for Russ Meyer's 1970 ""Beyond the Valley of the Dolls"" (which contained the line, ""This is my happening and it freaks me out!"" before it was uttered by Austin Powers, in addition to providing the source for the riotously funny anti-marijuana rant that introduces Sublime's classic cover of the Toyes' ""Smoke Two Joints""). You'll find the kind of breathlessly incisive skewering of stock movie conventions and situations only an affirmed devotee of the cinema could have written.
My favorite part of the interview was when we simply exchanged small talk about various movies—""My Darling Clementine"" being a superior western to ""High Noon"" and ""Tombstone,"" how ""Kill Bill: Volume 2"" was fascinating in that it fleshed out and improved ""Kill Bill: Volume 1,"" the uncanny wisdom in the closing scene in Tarantino's most underrated film, ""Jackie Brown,"" hell, I even managed to work in a reference to ""Road House.""
At the end of the interview, Ebert was gracious when I asked him to sign my copy of his 2006 Movie Yearbook, and patient when I couldn't figure out how to work my friend's damn camera. When you meet and chat with Roger Ebert, you can easily see how he's worked his way up to the highest tier of film criticism by, paradoxically, not acting or writing like an elitist. David Poland's quote on the back of Ebert's 2006 Movie Yearbook sums up his appeal the best: ""One main reason why Roger Ebert has become the leading critic of this generation is that he takes movies very, very seriously, but he also writes like a human being.""
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