31 Movies of May, Day 22: Life Itself
May 22nd viewing: Life Itself, chosen as part of an additional fundraiser for the Chicago Cinema Workers Fund, via the Music Box Theatre’s Virtual Cinema (click the link to check out some of the titles streaming through the Music Box right now, and stream one or two or five of them to help support them financially)
Year of Release: 2014
Directed by: Steve James
Written by: Steve James (inspired by the memoir by Roger Ebert)
Starring (as themselves in interviews and archive footage): Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert, Steve James, Gene Siskel, Marlene Iglitzen, Richard Corliss, Donna LaPieta, Ava DuVernay, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani, Errol Morris
Accompanying Beverage of Choice: Golden Ale (American Blonde Ale, 5.3% ABV), 5 Rabbit Cerveceria, Bedford Park, Illinois
(Support Independent Breweries - buy local when getting buzzed during quarantine)
One of the more celebrated scenes in Pixar’s Ratatouille, at least in critical circles, is the extended monologue at the film’s conclusion by Anton Ego, voiced wonderfully by Peter O’Toole. The monologue is Ego’s written review of a restaurant run by a rat, which, as the film explains, is a somewhat unconventional background for a chef. It begins as follows:
“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the *new*. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends.”
I bring that up now because, while watching Life Itself, I could have sworn this was written as a nod to Roger Ebert. And it very well might have been, given Ebert had been maybe the most famous film critic in America for decades at the time Ratatouille was released. But I was surprised to find out that Ebert’s memoir, also titled Life Itself, came out several years after Ratatouille, and expressed nearly the exact same sentiment in different words. Life Itself the documentary readily demonstrates Ebert’s dedication to this idea through story.
A substantial portion of the film is spent with some of the filmmakers whose work Ebert dedicated his life to analyzing and, more importantly, championing. Ramin Bahrani and Ava DuVernay both reminisce about how they first found the spotlight when Ebert used his platform to place focus on their early independent efforts. Going deeper into Ebert’s tenure, Martin Scorsese and Errol Morris discuss how Ebert was there at the very beginning of careers when they were just nascent talents, with Morris in particular emphasizing how Ebert and Gene Siskel used every chance they got to give airtime to his directing debut, Gates of Heaven. Even the director of this very movie, Steve James, remarks in narration that Ebert helped get him where he was today with his advocacy for his magnum opus, Hoop Dreams.
All of this probably coalesces best in an absolutely brilliant cut James makes between two directors. He starts with a scene of Ebert in the waning days of his life, sitting in a hospital bed, receiving a visit from Bahrani. The subject of conversation turns to Werner Herzog, and both Bahrani and Ebert’s wife, Chaz, start breaking into droll impressions of the iconoclastic German. James then suddenly cuts to a new scene, with continued voiceover in that same droll Bavarian accent - but now it’s voiceover from the real Werner Herzog, speaking of how much Ebert had meant to him over his career. The cut is first and foremost a gag, but it also highlights the great community that can arise out of filmmaking, and how Ebert has elevated voices within it to make the whole community greater and more interesting.
Beyond the filmmakers, the film also gives a lot of screentime to critic Richard Corliss, who was one of the biggest opponents of Ebert’s “At the Movies” presentation style, referring to it as glib and reductive. To the movie’s credit, it allows Corliss to make some good points. But it goes beyond the debate of thumbs up/thumbs down, and gets to the a much more concrete effect Ebert had on the industry in directly boosting the careers of some of film’s brightest voices. Regardless of what Ebert may have said in any single TV segment, that legacy is certainly something that any critic would be proud of.
