An Appreciation: Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert's (1942–2013) Movie Home Companion books were my introduction to film criticism during adolescence. Of course, I also loved watching Ebert and Gene Siskel do their thing At the Movies—especially when they championed difficult, but important cinema.

I would read and reread Ebert's review essays over and over again, though. Not only were they terrific criticism but they also worked beautifully as standalone prose. In fact, I can still remember small excerpts from some of them! A favorite was from his review of the laughably bad (and outrageously fun) Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985):

I have to concede that no one presides over a ritual quite as well as Sybil Danning, especially when she is savagely ripping open the bodice of her dress. She rips the dress so dramatically, in fact, that the shot is repeated twice during the closing credits, providing the movie with its second and third interesting moments.

He's right. Danning provides the film with its finest moment(s), because, duh, she's Sybil Freaking Danning, goddammit.

Another favorite of mine was in his review of The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), about Michelle Pfeiffer's star-making performance:

This is one of the movies they will use as a document, years from now, when they begin to trace the steps by which Pfeiffer became a great star. I cannot claim that I spotted her unique screen presence in her first movie, which, I think, was Grease II, but certainly by the time she made Ladyhawke and Tequila Sunrise and Dangerous Liaisons and Married to the Mob, something was going on. This is the movie of her flowering - not just as a beautiful woman, but as an actress with the ability to make you care about her, to make you feel what she feels.

I've spilled thousands upon thousands of words trying to explore what makes Pfeiffer such a brilliant actress, but Ebert did it back in 1989 with just a short paragraph's worth of explanation. Brilliant.

Do yourself a favor. Pick up one of Ebert's many film books, kick back, and luxuriate in a critic whose love of cinema shines through with every word he ever wrote. Positive, negative, or neutral reviews, each revealed the depth of the man's passion for film. Back in the day, as a nascent cinephile myself, it was all too easy to be inspired by that passion.

The late Roger Ebert was born on this day in 1942.

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Paul SJune 21, 2018 at 6:56 AM
Roger's site is still my first port of call for film reviews. I doubt we'll ever see his like again.
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