Dear Roger,
Thank you. Thank you so very much.
I first met you through my mother. She would love to watch
you and your beloved friend Gene Siskel battle it out on “At the Movies.” When
I was around 10 years old I was invited to join, and I couldn’t have been happier.
I had loved movies from a very young age, but listening to you and Gene discuss
these pieces of entertainment with such great passion and intellect opened my
eyes to a whole new way of looking at movies. Loving film could be an identity.
It could be a part of my life.
Starting with those nights with my mom and continuing until
now, you inspired me to learn about film as much as I could. And you,
as you will remain to be, were my greatest teacher. First, you taught me that a
film cannot be judged on a singular scale, but on a measure of intent—a measure
of potential. You could give 4-stars to a movie like Almost Famous and to The
Godfather without any inclination of equity. According to you, these movies are
critically different in scope and scale, yet perfectly accomplished what they
were each trying to do. This is what made you so incredibly popular. You never
looked down your nose at movies and deemed them inadequate in and of themselves.
For movies deserving bad reviews, you looked at that particular story, those particular
actors, and that particular director and said, “You could have done better.” Your
negative press was almost a call to action, which arose from a deeply seeded
belief and hope that movies can be great.
Secondly, you taught me, and the world, that film criticism itself
can be a beautiful form of entertainment. Now, I have not come close to reading all
10,000 of your reviews. But I can say with almost certainty that if I saw a
movie, and you wrote a review, I’ve most definitely read it. With the amazing
power of internet archives, I’ve gone back and read 100s if not 1,000s of your
reviews. And I’ve never gone to see a movie without reading your review either
before or after. You were my cinematic guiding light. Hell, the number of your
reviews I’ve read of movies I’ve never even seen might exceed those that I have
seen. But I didn’t read them just to hear your opinion about the movie itself. I
read them to listen to your unique, insightful, and often funny voice. While I
know you disdain lists and favorites, two gems of yours that immediately come
to mind are your Great Movies review of E.T. and your hilariously disdainful
review of North. Because of your ability to make criticism an entertaining
enrichment to great film, your reviews will forever accompany my favorite
cinematic memories.
Thirdly, you taught me is that it’s OK to love movies. Critics
have a desire to appear impartial in giving an intellectual assessment of a
film. But you were completely, and unabashedly certain that we will never be
able to fully remove our personal and emotional lens when watching film. That’s
actually what movies are there to do—they are there to evoke an emotional
response from its viewers. A perfect recent example of this is your 4-star
review of Secretariat. The general consensus was that this was a decent-at-best
Disney movie. I myself hated it. But your love of your friend Bill Nack, the
author who wrote the book Secretariat,
came through while you watched it. Half of your review was actually about Bill
and your memories with him. Your love for Bill and love of the story itself
affected your love of the film. And you would argue, “so what?” As with many
things in life, our love has nothing to do with rational valuation, and it’s OK let a movie touch us and then defend those sometimes solitary feelings to the very
end.
And lastly, you taught me that a love of the movies is
actually a love of life. When you underwent surgery in 2006 to remove cancerous
tissue near your jaw, you lost your ability to speak—a terrible prognosis made
especially terrible for someone who talked endlessly about movies for a living.
But that did not stop you from writing. You took to the blogosphere with Roger
Ebert’s Journal to write about literally everything and anything. Since then,
it has been a daily check of mine to look for any new additions. You were
awarded Webby awards and garnered a massive following of people like me who knew
that you were not just a great critic; you were a great writer. Your innate
love of story, of characters, of beauty, and of truth in movies was really a
love of everything worth watching in life.
Last night, I forwarded your latest blog post to Tegan, as I
often do, with the header, “We’re not going to have him much longer.” By this
morning you were no longer with us. In it, you celebrated 46 years as a film
critic at the Chicago Sun-Times and revealed you would be taking a “leave of
presence.” That little crack in your leg bone was actually your cancer that never really left. But you assured us you would still be here, working
on reviews of “only the movies I want to review” and the roll-out of Ebert
Digital. But I think you knew. And you said good-bye in the only way you knew
how—by telling us that we shouldn't worry and ending with “I’ll see you at the movies.”
Roger, we won’t see you at the movies anymore. But I promise—you
will always be with us.
Your gracious fan,
Tommy
