Life Itself

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Roger Ebert meant so much to the entire film community and when it was announced that there would be a documentary about his life and struggle after cancer, nearly every cinema lover jumped at the opportunity. Ebert, as well as his wife Chaz, inspired millions with their love, story, and the simplicity of living life with films as the central focus. Life Itself by director Steve James is an intimate and respectful look into the life of a man who too many people didn't get the chance to know.

I should start with talking a bit of what film criticism is to me. The picture inspires you to look inward and search for the reasoning behind such a love. Bloggers, critics, journalists, there are many names for all of us that exist in newspapers, internet sites, and forums around the world. We all love cinema and believe we can, and bring something different to the table of criticism. When I decided that I wanted to write about the movies, I knew I didn't want to be the academic critic. I'm not someone who analyzes the deep themes and symbolism of the movies. Doesn't mean I don't see them, it's just something I didn't set out to write about. My approach was always simple. Be able to tell people if a movie is good or not. I write from the heart. That's why you will often find typos, misusing grammar, etc.. I have never pretended to be a genius. Trust me, in school and in life, I've been pretty average when it came to academics and overall expectations. Where those have been my "shortcomings," I've been blessed in other ways with family, friends, and a killer staff. Roger Ebert was the academic critic who didn't believe that he was the tip of the iceberg. He knew there were many more of us that would claim to change the game and his time, was borrowed time on this earth.

In Life Itself, Ebert is captured in some of his most vulnerable moments but ironically, at his strongest point in his life. We witness him battle the heartbreaking truth, that his time with us is limited and there isn't much time left. But before we venture off into our Ebert of the past few years, director Steve James tells us a fascinating and beautiful story of Ebert's life, starting off in the film criticism industry, and what he brought to so many people. We get first person accounts from some of the world's most prestigious filmmakers and actors like Martin Scorsese, and first person accounts from Ebert's early days from many of his closest colleagues. It offers so much insight into the legacy of a man who offered so much to the world.

Through outtakes from the Siskel & Ebert show, to intimate and rich portraits from his many adventures around the globe, through Life Itself, we become even closer to a man we hardly knew, and in essence, become closer to ourselves. It's one of the finest films of the year and one that should be considered as the first documentary ever to be nominated for Best Picture. If there's a film that breaks the barriers for all movie-lovers everywhere, Steve James' Life Itself is it.

Magnolia Pictures will release LIFE ITSELF on iTunes/OnDemand and in theaters this Friday, July 4, 2014.

I guess there's just not much to say about this except that it's bloody brilliant. I feel like so many biographical documentaries might have wanted to talk about the person's entire life, and go through it all. Not this one, and because of it, it never feels bogged down by so much material. It flows through pretty easily and seamlessly, the editing isn't too fast-paced but instead lingers on Ebert's more philosophical viewpoints in his book. It's definitely incredibly sad and beautiful, probably the saddest documentary since Dear Zachary. This is destined to be a crowd-pleaser, as it should be. I strongly recommend it to anyone of any age.

I started watching this and almost could not continue. I found the pictures of Roger after his surgery to be quite upsetting. Seeing his lower jaw hanging open with no teeth, or even a lower jaw was disturbing but it was worth it getting past that.

This is another great movie that many people have not seen or even heard of, a hidden gem. It tells the amazing story of Roger's life, his successes, his demons, his challenging relationship with Gene Siskel and his amazing wife who he married later in life. The scenes with his wife and grandchildren are especially touching. This is a film of great joy and hope. Life is tough, but love will help us through.

As someone who literally grew up at the movies--my mother took me to anything and everything from my infancy right through my early childhood, until I was old enough to go by myself--my love for and fascination with film is deeply entrenched in my way of thinking, my way of writing, my way of viewing life. And Roger Ebert (with Gene Siskel) was a vital discovery, someone whose opinions were always worth hearing (or reading); someone whose love for film and his way of thinking about it seemed to legitimize my lifelong instinct to appraise and quantify the value of what I was being shown on the big screen. It was all right to question things, or to accept the questionable.

I was staying at my favorite hotel in London some years ago (the mid 80s, as I recall) with a writer friend from Oslo (another lover of film and theater). She and I were having a late-night post-theater meal in the lounge when Roger came bustling through on the way to his room. I nearly levitated from my seat at the sight of him, and after he'd passed from view, I tried, a bit deliriously, to explain to my friend who this man was, and his importance to the world of film. She was awe-struck when I spoke of the format of the show, of two men agreeing or disagreeing over forthcoming films. There was nothing like it anywhere outside of the U.S.

As I watched this documentary, I kept remembering that evening at Brown's Hotel way back then, thinking that Roger would have given this film a wholehearted thumbs up. It is wonderfully coherent, and offers insights into the man, into his extraordinary talents and his tremendous enthusiasm, not just for film but for life and the people he loved. It's not hard to understand how difficult it was for his remarkable wife Chaz to let him go.

Like all good films, it left me sated but sad, missing those years of the wonderful weekly excitement of sitting down with my daughter (now also a lifelong film buff) to watch Sneak Previews and, subsequently, At The Movies. This is a film *not* to be missed. It succeeds on every level.

It's pretty brave to name a movie Life Itself. The title alone suggests that the film will provide insight into the weird, unquantifiable, enormous, and very human experience that constitutes… well, life itself. It's even braver considering that the film is actually about a film critic: hardly the most scintillating or important of celebrities, in the Hollywood scheme of things. And yet, this documentary on the life, death and many things in between of pre-eminent American film critic Roger Ebert comes powerfully close to doing its title justice. In narrowing its focus to one human being and his share of triumphs and travails, Life Itself touches on something deeply universal.

For those completely unacquainted with Ebert, Life Itself serves as a useful introduction to America's most recognisable film critic. Even for those who knew of him through his reviews or had some information about the cancer that took his jaw away from him several years ago, the documentary offers plenty of fresh insight into the man himself.

Close friends share their memories of Ebert from his youth, remembering how he made tough professional calls even as the editor of his college newspaper. We watch as he and his collaborator and frenemy, Gene Siskel, become the most popular faces of film criticism in the US. And the camera brings us – oftentimes relentlessly – into the final months of his life, as Ebert trades e- mails (ranging from chirpy to despondent in tone) with director Steve James and struggles through a particularly punishing bout of physiotherapy.

Through it all, a portrait of Ebert emerges – one made all the more impactful because James deftly avoids turning his film into a hagiography. Ebert's sharp wit, intelligence and passion for the movies shine through. But so does his tendency to be petty and competitive over the screen time and fame he must share with Siskel. His love story with his wife Chaz is coloured in by as much joy as tragedy, and James does not shy away from depicting the more banal, dignity-sapping aspects of Ebert's life as a cancer victim.

And yet, what makes Life Itself – based on and named after Ebert's memoirs – so compelling is its subtle conclusion: that we can all choose to be the heroes of our own stories, however small, ordinary or painful they might be. Ebert may not be fighting dragons or fording streams, but he demonstrates superhuman courage whenever he tries to drag his uncooperative body up a flight of steps. This is a hero who gets crotchety, fretful, and sarcastic – the kind of hero who's trapped in his body and forced to communicate through scribbling or notepads or an electronic voice-box, but still manages to reach out with his words and his hope, hanging onto himself and sharing his passion for cinema with film-makers and audiences alike. It's the stuff that movies are far too frequently not made of, and it's the most fitting legacy for a man who spent his life loving them.