I'm too involved to start naming names.ĭo you feel that you have erred too much on the side of kindness and generosity in your criticism? Who are the other film critics you most admire? Such forms as the video essay are now possible. There are no limitations on subject or length. This is a new golden age for film criticism. Now that, largely thanks to the internet, everyone is a critic, what is the future for criticism? Can it survive? So, Robert Mitchum or John Wayne? Woody Allen or Werner Herzog? Nor did I find many as forthcoming as someone like Lee Marvin. For reasons I cannot explain, I never grew close over a long time with actresses. It's interesting that all the chapters in your book that are devoted to an individual are, with the exception of your wife, Chaz, men. I found in the depths of the night that a dark novel such as Cormac McCarthy's Suttree spoke to me. When I was still in hospital, I asked for PG Wodehouse, but for the first time he didn't work for me. Bergman was there ahead of me, fearlessly gazing into the abyss. My thoughts were turned decidedly toward mortality and questions of life and time. It may have worked for him, but I didn't feel a whole lot like laughing. There's that Norman Cousins theory that laughter may help heal illness. Can you expand a little on why, precisely, this was the case? You write in your book that the films of Ingmar Bergman were a huge comfort to you during your recuperation, that his "existential dread" cheered you. I quoted a line from Raging Bull: "He ain't a pretty boy no more." We have to grow comfortable with reality. Has your new face made you wonder afresh about America's obsession with cosmetic surgery, Botox and the rest?Īfter surgery, I was advised to not attend my own festival because paparazzi might peddle pictures of my new appearance. But still, five years… how have you got through? What is your secret? These past five years: you say that you are content now, that you have come to terms with the loss of your voice and the dramatic change to your appearance. The fact that I can still do it is a great compensation after losing my speaking voice. I was a professional journalist on a daily paper before I was 16. In grade school, I published a little neighbourhood newspaper. Would you tell me a little about your writing life? It seems to me that it started out as a neat way of earning a living, but it is now almost as vital to you as the air you breathe. For example, after everything, here I am quite happily answering your questions. I learned some lessons about being grateful for what one has. It could also be said to be a direct result of your many surgeries because you took up blogging, and thus a more personal form of writing, only after you lost your voice in 2006 – and that, in turn, led to this memoir. It also helps that I have been lucky enough to live a generally cheerful life. But it's true I am an optimistic person and try to deal with situations in a straightforward and positive way. I nearly died and lost the ability to speak, eat and drink. Is this nature, or nurture, or what? Did you simply edit out the low points? Your book, Life Itself, is one of the most positive I've ever read. On the other hand, "I don't expect to die any time soon… I have plans". He has written that he knows that death is coming "and I do not fear it because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born and I think of death as the same state". "I like them." A typically Ebertian response. "Your questions are provocative!" he wrote, when I sent him my queries. This encounter was therefore conducted by email. In 2006, following post-surgical complications connected to his treatment for thyroid cancer, Ebert lost a large section of his right jaw he has not been able to speak, eat or drink since. He runs his own film festival, Eberfest, and co-wrote the screenplay of Russ Meyer's 1970 camp classic, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. His reviews – he still writes up to six a week both for the newspaper and his website (which receives 110 million visits a year) – are syndicated around the world. He is one of the few critics to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Roger Ebert, who has been reviewing movies for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer prize.
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