gridoon2024 Review of Life Itself

Life Itself (2014)

Intimate, unflinching portrait of the influential film critic

[7/10 · 9 February 2021]

I count myself as a lifelong (well, ever since I discovered him, anyway) fan of Roger Ebert; his reviews, along with those of Leonard Maltin and Pauline Kael, shaped about 90% of my concept of what film criticism should be: above all else, something that a) tells you enough to judge if you're gonna like a movie regardless of whether the author of the review likes it or not, and b) something that is worth reading (and re-reading) for itself, for its own value as a piece of writing, no matter if you agree with it or not. This documentary has many choice moments (like filmmaker Errol Morris suggesting that he probably wouldn't have a career if Siskel and Ebert hadn't promoted his early effort, "Gates Of Heaven", against all odds), but I felt the quantity of focus on Ebert's health condition, although Ebert himself demanded it, bordered on the uncomfortably voyeuristic at times. It's a sad yet still hopeful movie, because, after all, Ebert will live forever: with his thousands of reviews covering several decades of film production, plus his "Great Movies" retrospectives and other tributes, there will always be something new by him to be discovered, studied and argued for or against. As he himself said, he is still seeing us all at the movies. *** out of 4.