LIFE ITSELF Is A Film Everyone Should Embrace

             

I think it's a sure thing everyone reading this blog is at least familiar with the name Roger Ebert. The Chicago Sun-Times critic, who along with another scribe from the competition across the street, Gene Siskel from the Chicago Tribune, ended up turning film critique into entertainment itself with their AT THE MOVIES /AND THE MOVIES show(s).
If for some reason you haven't owned a television since 1976, but you read, then you must know him as the author of numerous collections like GREAT MOVIES,  EBERT'S ESSENTIAL 27 MOVIES FROM THE DARKSIDE, and the hilariously honest I HATED, HATED, HATED YOUR MOVIE. The fact that he also wrote books like the traveling foot-trekkers THE PERFECT LONDON WALK, and the screenplay for the Russ Meyer classic BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS just argue for the point that this man deserves to be immortal. At least figuratively.

Sadly, no one lives forever.

Cancer took Ebert's lower jaw and part of his throat, leaving him unable to eat or speak. Supporting him in the on-going battle and supplying emotional strength was his wife Chaz. The documentary, by one of Ebert's favorite filmmakers, Steve James, whose HOOP DREAMS Ebert championed early on, follows the couple and and reflects both on Ebert's long running career as a film critic. and the family that surrounds him. James illuminates that acerbic yet tender relationship between Ebert and his proverbial other-half professionally speaking, Gene Siskel, and includes family and friends reflecting on their reluctant yet undeniable friendship. We see outtakes of their AT THE MOVIES tv ads, in which they snipe and poke at each other anytime one flubs a line or gives unwanted direction.  We also come to understand Ebert's sadness over never being told his cohort had an inoperable brain tumor, and the fact he was never able to properly express his love and say his final goodbyes. This led Ebert to deciding he was always going to be open should something like that happen to him. True to his word, regrettably, tragedy strikes in the form of cancer, yet Ebert indeed heads face forward into the situation, to the point of allowing photographs of himself post jaw-removing operation, which at first glimpse, can be very shocking.
This is where we truly begin to see the incredible spirit of Ebert, who approaches his life with as much unflinching honesty, and wonderful zeal, as he did his work in film criticism. We get to know a man who was born to the news business, and came up in a time when the print industry was full of hard writing and hard drinking journalists, who would pound down a handle of their favorite poison, then a scant few hours later be at their desks pounding out three thousand words, before repeating the process all over again. We also see a love story between a man and his profound love of art, be it cinema, literature, or even food.
LIFE ITSELF, under James' masterful eye for honesty and the profound, is a deep gazing, deft look at an incrdibly multi-layered life. Thanks to the tenacity and strength and closeness of the Ebert family, LIFE ITSELF also avoids being a maudlin, tear jerking exercise in tragedy. Instead, the documentary is an uplifting and celebratory piece, that leaves the viewer stronger in their belief that meeting ones eventual end need not become the controlling factor in whatever time may be left. The film is more akin to a New Orleans burial than some dour funeral dirge. It is not a lamentation, but a true celebration. Here's to Roger and his family, and to the incredible legacy of words and insights he left to us all, cinematic and otherwise.Many of those those treasured words can be found HERE at his official; website, where a fleet of other writers, including his wife Chaz, are keeping the legacy, and Roger's memory alive for future generations of film lovers. 

k

Serve with -
Hamburgers
French Fries
Root beer flavored milkshakes
...in honor of Ebert's undying love for Steak N' Shake
Red Hots
Licorice flavored Chuckles

If you like LIFE ITSELF, check these other entertainments out -
Milius (DVD or Netflix)
It Came From Kuchar (DVD)
Val Lewton: The Man In The Shadows (DVD)
Hoop Dreams (DVD)