Life in the Limelight

LIFE ITSELF (B) - They laughed, they cried.

It's a shame that Roger Ebert isn't around to write about this documentary based on his elegant memoirs.Would he have cut the filmmaker some slack? And how would Gene Siskel have picked this apart on the air?

The Roger Ebert story always feels personal to me, a deep Chicago connection welling up, and I tried not to raise expectations too high for this homage from Steve James, the "Hoop Dreams" director who owes a good deal of his success to the famous critic's championing of that indie doc. And while this pushes some emotional buttons and can be greatly entertaining at times, it doesn't quite cohere as a story.

James was permitted intimate access to Ebert in his final months, during late 2012 and early 2013 (he died of cancer that April), most of which was spent in the hospital or in rehab. James seems compelled to make that ordeal the focus of the movie, as if he both was obligated to use the footage to full effect and was perhaps even bullied by Ebert, who serves as somewhat of a co-director (at times the subject literally gives orders to the filmmaker, demanding a certain camera angle). What ends up on the screen isn't so much fawning as it is a bit ill-fitting.

As moving and as revealing of some of Ebert's cancer treatments are -- not to mention the devotion of his wife, Chaz, and her family -- the film sags under the weight of the medical scenes, which dominate the first and last half hours. (James would have been well-served to trim at least 15 minutes from the full two-hour running time; he needed a co-editor, too.)

By contrast, the middle of the movie is a blockbuster. You could feel the energy of the audience immediately swell when Siskel first appears on the screen. As much as I admire Roger Ebert and consider him one of the great essayists of his time, there's no denying that, visually, not much can compete with the phenomenon that was Siskel and Ebert. Their appeal is irresistible. Even in clips that you've seen before on YouTube, including acid-tongued outtakes from show promos, the static between the two men crackles. Observers -- mainly their TV producers (all women) and Siskel's widow, Marlene Iglitzen -- peel back the celebrity veneer and show us the true relationship, including the competitiveness, the insecurities, the pettiness and the passion. Iglitzen in particular seems to  have the keenest insights into what made the two men tick. In one powerful scene, she reads a letter from Ebert, penned more than 10 years after the death of Siskel, in which the elderly film critic, sensing his own imminent mortality, finally expresses his love for his former partner.

During this fine middle hour -- amid the debate of whether Siskel and Ebert were the dumbed-down version of Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, served up by corporate America to cater to the masses -- James gets at the heart of the story. Younger filmmakers -- including the hugely talented Ramin Bahrani ("Man Push Cart," "Goodbye Solo") and the young black woman Ava DuVernay ("I Will Follow") -- express their gratitude for the newsprint and air time granted to them by Ebert. In that way, the critic was a voice for the common man, inspired by his labor-proud father and his own humble roots in central Illinois. Bahrani and DuVernay tug at the heart, as you realize how compassionate Ebert was and how that resource is sorely missed.

James also builds momentum in the first half by parading on screen some of Ebert's old pals and colleagues, including a particularly glib Roger Simon, the columnist. The guys tell tall tales about the epic nights of drinking in the 1970s. They boast of his skills as a pre-eminent newspaperman. Favored directors Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog take good measure of the man. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott is particularly sharp in his observations. James, however, loses touch with most of them in the second half, abandoning a key perspective. He also fumbles a one-off interview with more recent Sun-Times colleagues.

Another interesting trick involves narration throughout by an Ebert sound-alike (Stephen Stanton). It's a little distracting (especially when "Roger" is telling us about how he can no longer speak), but it's an inspired strategy. It brings to mind Ebert's memorable turns of DVD commentary on "Citizen Kane" and other classics.)

Maybe it's gauche to suggest that we should be fed more TV banter and less real-life-and-death drama in a documentary about a pop culture figure who was a serious thinker and who put a public face on suffering; but this is a film on the big screen. The overwhelming image you take away here is of a decrepit old man, his lower jaw (what's left of it) hanging sadly from his disfigured face. It's not as if James is aiming to make some larger point about the skin-deep shallowness of the culture of TV and film; rather, he's cobbling together a disproportionate picture of a man and what his life was truly about. Don't ignore those final years and months, but don't wallow in it.

Roger Ebert was a legend of journalism and of 20th century cinema and letters. As an individual, his exploits translate perfectly to the page. On the screen (big and small), he was fully animated as part of a team. (One of his solo reporting projects featured here, which he filmed at Cannes, makes clear that the magic disappears when he and Siskel were split up.) This attempt to capture his life only fully comes to life when we are witnessing the story of two movie critics who managed to sell indie gems like "Hoop Dreams" and "Gates of Heaven" to the general public in a bygone era. Like the old days of newspapers, it was a heady time.

James' mix is just a tad off here. He's made an entertaining yet bittersweet film. But it's not above criticism.