With all
due respect to Wesley and Ty (and A.O. Scott, and David Denby, and, well, fill
in your own favorite practitoners' names), the heroic age of movie reviewing is
long gone. Those heady days when the culture would wobble ever so slightly in
anticipation of Pauline Kael's latest broadside in The New Yorker, or Renata
Adler would unload on Pauline to the tune of 8000 words (try tweeting that!) in
The New York Review of Books, or Andrew Sarris would make the world that much
safer for auteurism in the pages of The Village Voice? Well, that was back
before the Punic Wars.
Stanley Kauffmann remains a model
of terse astringency in The New Republic at 93 (that's not a typo). But he's
never really been a movie person -- or larger cultural presence -- the way
Pauline was or Sarris is. The only real survivor of those mighty days of Sturm und Drang amid the son et lumiere is Roger Ebert. And Chris
Jones' very good profile of him in the March Esquire makes you appreciate the
full import of that word, "survivor."
However unintentionally, the
success Ebert and Gene Siskel had with their thumbs up/thumbs down routine on
TV helped end the heroic age. There's never been any doubt about Ebert's profound
attachment to movies, though, or the many contributions he's made to film
culture generally, with his books, lecturing, and, of course, decades of
serious, passionate reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times.
Now 67, Ebert keeps writing away,
not just at the Sun-Times, but also on his blog, Roger Ebert's Journal. He's
writing more than ever, actually, this despite the fact a series of cancer
operations has left him unable to speak, eat, or drink (he receives nourishment
from a feeding tube). Other than that, Ebert leads a normal existence _--whatever normal means. Jones' piece is engrossing reading for anyone interested
in mortality, which is presumably everyone old enough to see an
R picture unaccompanied by adult. It has a special resonance for anyone
who loves movies. The joy
and sustenance Ebert continues to derive from moviegoing speaks to anyone who's
paid money to spend a few hours sitting in the dark and then come out feeling
renewed afterwards.
(Another aspect of the Jones piece
is worth noting. Expect it to become required reading in journalism schools.
Why? There can't be many other magazine profiles where a reader has the chance
to find out not just what the writer thought of the subject but what the
subject thought of the profile. Ebert, pro that he is, approves.)
