RIP: Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert died today, one day after the 46th anniversary of his elevation to film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. He was one of the finest essayists of our time, a thoughtful man. He set an elegant example not only for critics and journalists but for those looking for clues on how to live a fulfilling life.

I always qualify the following assertion: I worked with Roger Ebert in the 1990s at the Chicago Sun-Times. Of course, he was the heart of the paper, the class of the joint, and I just passed through there for seven years. I can remember him gracing the newsroom only a few times during my tenure; my recollection is that he didn't even have an office or a desk there. Why would he need one? He spent most of his time in dark theaters or at home penning smart, catchy reviews covering every genre of film imaginable. I rarely if ever even edited his reviews. Though he wasn't a regular in the newsroom, his presence was felt daily. (And, I have to think, not only the newsroom but the printed newspaper itself must seem like a shell today.) A good example of that long shadow of his: I'll never forget how he threw his famous weight around as a member of the Newspaper Guild in 1994, hours before our strike deadline, calling from his vacation spot to assure the union leadership (and to send a message to our bosses) that he was with us 100 percent as our dues-paying colleague.

We didn't know it yesterday, but this blog post was his farewell, so sweetly titled: A Leave of Presence.
Here's one of the better obits today, from the Los Angeles Times.

One of his pieces that's always stuck with me is his review of a film I've never seen: "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut," from 1999. For me, it's a perfect example of his assured grasp of pop culture and his ability to riff on an elevated plane while connecting with the masses -- at a critical time when a major shift in media and entertainment was taking place on the brink of a new millennium. Here are a few excerpts:

The national debate about violence and obscenity in the movies has arrived in South Park.  . . . The year's most slashing political commentary is not in the new films by Oliver Stone, David Lynch or John Sayles, but in an animated comedy about obscenity.

. . . I laughed. I did not always feel proud of myself while I was laughing, however. The movie is like a depraved extension of ``Kids Say the Darnedest Things,'' in which little children repeat what they've heard and we cringe because we know what the words really mean. No target is too low, no attitude too mean or hurtful, no image too unthinkable. After making ``South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut,'' its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had better move on. They've taken ``South Park'' as far as it can go, and beyond.


. . . I laughed, as I have reported. Sometimes the laughter was liberating, as good laughter can be, and sometimes it was simply disbelieving: How could they get away with this? This is a season when the movies are hurtling themselves over the precipice of good taste. Every week brings its new surprises. I watch as Austin Powers drinks coffee that contains excrement, and two weeks later I go to ``American Pie'' and watch a character drink beer that contains the most famous bodily fluid from ``There's Something About Mary.'' In ``Big Daddy,'' I see an adult instruct a 5-year-old on how to trip Roller-bladers and urinate in public.

Now this--a cartoon, but it goes far beyond anything in any of those live-action movies. All it lacks is a point to its message. What is it saying? That movies have gone too far, or that protests against movies have gone too far? It is a sign of our times that I cannot tell. Perhaps it's simply anarchistic, and feels that if it throws enough shocking material at the wall, some of it will stick. A lot of the movie offended me. Some of it amazed me. It is too long and runs out of steam, but it serves as a signpost for our troubled times. Just for the information it contains about the way we live now, thoughtful and concerned people should see it. After all, everyone else will.

I wasn't really a consistent reader of his reviews, and when I compare his top-10 lists with those of his old partner, Gene Siskel, I find my tastes skewing toward those of the skinny bald one who, as a writer, wasn't in Roger's league. But I've been a lifelong admirer of the chubby one with glasses. And while our preferences haven't overlapped much since I left Chicago, I've been knocked over by how he handled his illnesses -- or how he rose above them, made them seem to not matter, to remain an important voice (even when he literally lost his) in our national cultural conversation. He's long  been a role model for me as a newspaperman, a writer and inveterate moviegoer.

I somehow got to share, in a small way, seven of those 46 years during which he held sway as a Pulitzer-winning critic, as a player in the world of cinema and as a beloved Chicago celebrity.

Newspaper work was fun.

I worked with Roger Ebert.