Doing a review on a film about a man who wrote reviews on films is almost humorously topic-reflexive, but in cinema the image is the word, and perhaps Roger Ebert is therefore the most appropriate subject matter. Ebert had an outsize passion for movies and generated thousands of pieces of criticism on the art form but, like anyone else on this mortal coil, he had his own troubles. The travails and the successes are Steve James’ impetus in this touching look at Ebert, named after his recent memoir, Life Itself.
James, who is most known for his 1994 Oscar-nominated basketball doc Hoop Dreams, documents with unflinching and sometimes harrowing clarity some of the last moments the plump, hearty film critic shares with his friends and family as he battles thyroid cancer. On top of his disease, between treatments he suffered a hairline fracture to his femur bone, it’s cause unknown to him or his physicians. This reduced Ebert to a near vegetable, his lower jaw now a scary, dangling flap of skin due to the disease, but he still managed to smile when engaged by loved ones, filmmaker friends and even director James, introducing himself in the mirror at the film’s intro, as per Ebert’s request.
Amidst footage of his devoted wife Chaz (their mixed race marriage is also covered in the film) who lugs her understandably cranky husband in and out of their home between treatments, James interviews some of Ebert’s best buddies and co-workers from his old days in O‘Rourkes, a pub in his native Chicago. They brag of their dear friend being the first film critic ever to win a Pulitzer Prize, and recount with pride his reign at the Chicago Sun-Times, a job he held since 1967. They also recall his razor sharp wit, his braggadocian nature, and with less enthusiasm, his problems with alcohol.
Perhaps the lion’s share of these memories is spent on Ebert’s most famous turn, as half of TV’s At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert, which besides making especially Ebert a household name, made film criticism as a writing mode much more accessible to the common consumer. And James employs tons of footage covering the seven years that these two rivalrous cinephiles worked together. Watching him and Siskel (also a victim to the throes of cancer; died of a brain tumor in 1999) get hot over their differing opinions on the infinitely subjective nature of the films they covered is insightful - particularly when they review Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ebert is empowering in his defense of it. The show exhibits Ebert at the height of his being, a man living fully and fighting for his belief in not just specific films, but in cinema as a whole, a privilege that some critics of this medium take for granted.
Additionally, there is a series of hilarious but tense outtakes as the two critics try to finish recording an opening teaser bit. Siskel perpetually fumbles a line, and Ebert - ever the yin to Siskel’s yang - continues to jab him for it. Siskel eventually takes a cheap shot and teases Ebert for being overweight.
The lighter and funnier moments are a relief here, such as Scorsese's two cents on Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of Dolls, Ebert's first outing as a screenwriter. Scorsese doesn’t bullshit here. He points out a well-executed scene and then basically trashes the rest. In a 1982 episode of the Johnny Carson show, Chevy Chase mocks Ebert behind his back. He was a bit embarrassed but a good sport.
In an inspiring tribute, Goodbye Solo and Man Push Cart director Ramin Bahrahni tells of Ebert giving him an old jigsaw puzzle which was given to Marilyn Monroe by Alfred Hitchcock years ago. Given what is essentially a filmmaker’s precious memento, Bahrahni is touched by the notion of continuing the tradition of passing on this heirloom to the next ready filmmaker.
James’ film is a bit long at nearly two hours but, to it’s credit, it’s hard to not find yourself charmed, saddened and altogether moved by the person Ebert was and the circumstances he had to endure. If a film can move one to look at their own life and what makes them happy, then perhaps that’s at least enough.
