I’m Your Man: Thoughts on LIFE ITSELF

Like many others, I count Roger Ebert as a massive influence on my approach to film and my approach to writing. So when we lost Roger last April, I took it to heart. Between then and now though, my sadness has turned into a feeling of great joy. This sense of joy stems from the idea that the soul of the man can be found in his writing, and that said writing can be re-read and reconsidered with such ease thanks to the technological age in which we live.

By putting so much of himself into his work, he has allowed pieces of himself to live on long after he has left.

But there was more joy in mudville with the knowledge that Steve James was working on this film, and that it would allow us one more look at the man, his family, his past, and his very outlook on life itself.

LIFE ITSELF debuted at The Sundance Film Festival last week. It is a documentary on Roger and all facets of his life. It chronicles his past, his entry into journalism, his married life with Chaz, his rise in popularity as a film critic, and his recent health struggles.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, this will not be a review. Putting aside the notion of reviewing a film that hasn’t been properly released, and thus been seen by so few, I don’t think I could ever give this film that sort of treatment. It feels too close to me, too personal.

Midway through the film, I found my brain wandering and had to crack a smile. You see, ideally, I would have loved to have watched this film for the first time in a cinema, surrounded by like-minded fans of film, documentary, and Roger. However, my support of the project’s crowdfunding had me watching it for the first time at home. While that might not sound like the most ideal option, it was the most fitting.

After all, it meant that I was watching this film from the same couch where I first experienced the films of Bergman, Ozu, and Fellini. I was watching it on the same TV that made me fall in love with Wilder, Allen, and Bogdanovich. I was watching it seated next to the woman who stoked my passion for Bob Fosse and John Cameron Mitchell…a woman I literally met at the movies. Arriving as I did to so many of my favorite films from the warmth and comfort of my living room, it seemed only apropos that I experience this documentary in that same manner.

As I let feeling of pain, pride, awe, and warmth wash over me, I found myself latching more and more on to one detail that several interviewees in the film brought up. Time and again, people made reference to Roger’s (already amazing) writing taking huge strides forward when he lost his ability to speak. They all point out that his writing became his voice, and with that the results were palpable.

As an artist in his own right, it allowed him a rare gift; it allowed him to create work in his later days that was on-par, if not better, than his early prime. With that, Roger the Critic got the last laugh on so many of the filmmakers he covered throughout his career. After all, how many directors have we all watched put out inferior films and thought to ourselves “Their earlier stuff was so much better”?

As for the film, all I can offer as an opinion is that Roger would be proud, that director Steve James should be proud, and that everyone who sees the doc – be it in a theatre or in their living room – is in for something beautiful.

Roger was a man who gained so much love, support, and inspiration from the people around him, and understood how to pay every bit of it forward. In the same way, his wife Chaz is the very embodiment of inspiration, support, and love. This film is just as much hers as it is Roger’s, filing viewers hearts with her strong and caring spirit. The same way Roger showed us what to look for in a film, Chaz shows us what to look for in other people.

From time to time, people have asked me why I watch so many movies. I’ve mustered a reasonable answer or two, but have never been able to entirely pin it down. After all it’s a fair question. “Why movies?”. Why not books, or hockey, or music, or politics? Why has this one artistic expression consumed so much of my life?

It should come as no surprise then that Roger Ebert expresses the answer far better than I ever could. It’s something I intend to carry with me going forward, and something I will consider his parting gift as a man, writer, and critic:

“We all are born with a certain package; we are who we are. Where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised…we’re kind of stuck inside that person. The purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize with other people. For me the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams, and fears.

It helps us to identify with these people who are sharing this journey with us.”

Thanks Roger. See you at the movies.