RIP Roger Ebert

I was going to spend this week more or less focusing on my recent trip to Washington wit my son, and will get to that.

However, other things obviously do happen in this world, and alter your plans on what you are going to write about. That happened yesterday, when I learned of the death of filmmaker Roger Ebert.

So, let me preface this by saying one thing. Usually, when someone dies, and I decide to add an entry like this to the blog, I do some research, and add some information from it. For this one, I deliberately tried not to do that, but rather to express my own memories of the man. Since learning of his death, I actually found out some things about him that were impressive and moving - particularly his own quoted words, which I have added below. Also, I added a tribute in words by filmmaker Michael Moore, who shares his story about Roger Ebert. This seemed a fitting tribute to the man. Also, I figure that if you want to read articles about him right now, you don't need me to provide them for you, or anything. Learning more about him was more powerful than I had expected it to be, and I now deeply regret not having made more of a point of keeping track of his reviews. That said, I think highly enough of his reviews that I might just go back and see what he has to say about certain movies. Already, one movie that he picked as his movie of the year for 2012 is now on my list: Argo.

Anyway, here goes:

When I was a kid, I remember the show "Siskel & Ebert" very well. My parents used to watch it, and so, obviously, that meant that my brother and I did, too. Remember, this was the era before televisions in every room, let alone internet access on every phone.

The show was enjoyable, and so were the reviews.

Funny, but there was a sense of continuity in seeing Siskel & Ebert doing their movie reviews over the years. As like with so many things when younger, you never really appreciate it until it's gone.

I remember when Siskel died. Suddenly, there would be no chance anymore of the show anymore. It was not something that I watched religiously, but it had seemed to be on television for a long time, and so, for me, it was an institution.

Ebert continued the show with a new cohost, Richard Roeper.

But then, Ebert himself got cancer, and everything changed. His physical appearance changed greatly, and he was advised not to allow himself to be photographed. But he responded by asking why not? After all, that was the way he looked. For a man who was, directly or indirectly, in the business of show business, this was a testament to remaining true to yourself, accepting yourself as is, and not trying to do anything artificial or dress yourself up. Or, for that matter, hide yourself away.

When I heard that story, I thought that it was beautiful. But here is something else that is beautiful. Here are some words from Roger Ebert, describing not only what he did for a living, but why he did it:

“Because we are human, because we are bound by gravity and the limitations of our bodies, because we live in a world where the news is often bad and the prospects disturbing, there is a need for another world somewhere, a world where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers live.”  

“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”  

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.”


Here is Michael Moore had to say about the passing of Roger Ebert:

There are so many thoughts going through my head about the passing of one of the most important people of my life - Roger Ebert. You could make the case that he "discovered" me. Here's the excerpt from my book about the first time I met him: http://mmflint.me/12mArsT

After the screening was over, he was telling people it was one of the best films he'd seen in the past decade. I couldn't believe it. I was still on unemployment. The next day he wrote an incredible piece in the Chicago Sun-Times, the first to tell the world about me and my movie:  http://mmflint.me/14Hynjd

That morning I was walking down the sidewalk in Telluride and someone at a sidewalk cafe called out my name and said "can I take a picture of you?" Nobody had ever asked me that before. I turned around and it was Roger Ebert. He had a little Kodak Instamatic and I stood there and posed for my first-ever "fan photo." A few months later "Roger & Me was released and here is the awesome review he published: http://mmflint.me/YVLsBG I was so stunned by not only his praise but how he truly saw what this film was really saying: that the Reagan years we were going through were going to cause great harm to this country. How well do we know the truth of that now.

He and Gene Siskel (the Chicago Tribune critic and co-host of their TV show) were very competitive (Siskel, too, was a genius, and a very generous man). When they did their "Top 10 Films 0f 1989" show, Roger called me up complaining that while they had both named my movie on their top ten lists, Gene saw that Roger was going to put it at #5. So Gene decided to put "Roger & Me" at #2 (after "Do the Right Thing"). Roger said, "That's just like Gene - I discover the film, but then he has to show he loves it even more!" Those two cracked me up.

Roger Ebert was the champion of the underdog filmmaker. Early on, he told middle America about Spike Lee and Errol Morris and Ang Lee and myself and so many others. He gave as much attention to an obscure but brilliant foreign film as he did to a Hollywood blockbuster. He was a fierce advocate for art and free speech and for stamping out the ignorance that seems at times to be the lifeblood of this country. He answered only to himself and if you made a good movie he wasn't going to shut up until everyone saw it. He even started a film festival in the Illinois town where he went to college called The Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival -- for movies that didn't get proper distribution but were brilliant.

Over a decade ago, before he got cancer, he sent me a personal letter about how he was going to lose weight and get healthy -- and told me I should join him. I eventually did, and i began down the long, slow road to a better self. He lost something like a hundred pounds and never felt better. And then cancer struck. Driving though Chicago one night he told me the story of why and how he thinks he got it. He told me that back in the early '50s, a Chicago hospital decided to try to cure children's colds or other simple ailments by blasting them with radiation. He believed that is what set off the chain of events that would eventually debilitate him with this disease. He said that many of the other kids like him who were in the program had also contracted cancer. It was a sad story.

But he never gave up - and I mean never. He was working last week. I'm certain most of us would have thrown in the towel by the time half of our face was removed. Not Roger. I visited him at his home after my last film was released and had a nice talk with him through this contraption on his computer that did the "talking" for him. He commented on my use of Catholic priests in the film - priests who referred to capitalism as a sin of greed -- and thought that was a very good way to convey the message to the public. But then he handed me a book to read by Richard Dawkins, the renowned atheist. He encourage me to read it. He didn't believe there were going to be any pearly gates for him when he died.

When I left his Chicago townhouse, I said to one of my crew members, "I think that's the last time I will probably see him."

It was.

Goodbye, dear friend -- you lived a valuable and generous life. You knew long ago that art -- the movies -- could not only bring joy and and exhilaration, they could also become a weapon to defend the defenseless, to expose the emperor and his lack of clothes, and to bring enlightenment to people. There are so many of us filmmakers and filmlovers who thank you for that, and you will not soon be forgotten.

By the way, I never quite got the thumb thing. :-)

I hope there's popcorn wherever you are tonight.

I am saddened to hear of the loss of a great film critic of our time, and of all time, surely. Even more, he was a great human being, and he will be missed.