Ebert had a sense of humor about this, and throughout his life curated a “movie dictionary” that cataloged clichés. When you see as many movies as Ebert did, you become acutely aware of crutches, clichés, and fallback strategies commonly used by filmmakers. No art work, and no medium, exists in a vacuum: there’s always cross-pollination, and Ebert appreciated that.Ĩ. A literary scholar who nearly went into academia instead of journalism, Ebert often mentioned books and other art forms in his movie reviews. People who disagreed with him would tell him to “stick to movies,” but he always defended his right to speak his mind about anything, whether or not anyone wanted to listen. Ebert wrote about politics, literature, and other subjects before he ever wrote about film, and he continued to occasionally weigh in on those subjects throughout his career. Ebert wasn’t afraid to call a turkey a turkey, but through his film festival and through thousands upon thousands of words of writing, he advocated passionately for the great, for the good, and for movies in general.Ħ. People accuse critics of hating everything, but the fact of the matter is that you don’t take a job as a critic unless you deeply love the thing it is you’re writing about-in Ebert’s case, movies. If filmmakers all asked themselves this question and answered it honestly, maybe half of all movies would never be made.ĥ. Is this movie more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? Ebert called this “the Siskel Test,” in acknowledgement of the fact that the question was first asked by his longtime professional partner Gene Siskel. A movie-or a book, or a play-is a thing onto itself.Ĥ. You’re not reviewing global warming when you review An Inconvenient Truth, any more than you’re reviewing war when you review Platoon. This was one of Ebert’s favorite dictums. A movie isn’t about what it’s about, it’s about how it’s about it. Ebert knew that putting himself into his reviews didn’t just make them more interesting, it made them more honest.ģ. Ebert knew that he wasn’t omniscient, and that each person’s perception of a film is inevitably colored by his or her own personality and history. From the outset, one of the things that made Ebert unusual as a critic was how autobiographical his reviews were. Just as film directors take pride in their creations, so should critics take pride in theirs.Ģ. He understood that a review isn’t just an analysis of someone else’s creation, it is a creation in and of itself. Roger Ebert’s reviews are almost always entertaining to read, whether or not you have any interest in the movie being reviewed.
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