Take a seat and recline to experience the work, life, and legacy of Pulitzer prize winning film critic, Roger Ebert. The 2014 biographical film Life Itself, the title of Ebert’s memoir, brings to light the physical struggle of thyroid cancer on the critic with much of the film taking place in Ebert’s hospital room. Life Itself was critically lauded, winning the Producers Guild, the National Board of Review, and the Broadcast Film Critics Association awards for best documentary. The film’s director, Oscar nominee Steve James, directed Hoop Dreams, what was recorded as one of Ebert’s favorite films of the 1990’s. This marks an intimate, mutually respected relationship between director and subject. Life Itself begins in a somber tone with the first shot of the film capturing a crowd taking picture of a marquee that eventually reads “Roger Ebert: A Celebration of Life With Love From Chaz” (Chaz was his wife of twenty one years). James explains the film was to be an adaptation of Ebert’s memoir before his sudden passing five months into production. The film’s angle adjusted to become a hybrid of the memoir and a document of Ebert’s hospital bed-ridden lifestyle, unable to speak, communicating with thousands of fans through his personal film blog.

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The film proves its title in its scope of information. Life Itself explores Ebert’s relationship to religion, alcoholism, critical and film history, and love. Life Itself is told through photos and videos depicting events narrated from Ebert’s memoir (the voice artist tasked with mimicking Ebert’s voice and midwestern accent). As sections of the memoir unfold, talking head segments from old Chicago classmates and colleagues divulge memories and insightful meditations on life. Several acclaimed filmmakers, such as Oscar nominated director Ava Duvernay and Oscar winning documentarian Errol Morris, express their graciousness towards Ebert for championing and expanding the reach of their first projects. The philosophy of criticism is displayed as highly debated and sacred to the artistic process.

 Friend and mentee of Roger Ebert, Matt Zoller-Seitz writes, “when critics review films, they bring the sum of their intellectual capacity and life experience to bear, along with whatever drama (or comedy) they're going through at that moment in time”. Ebert’s current physical state emphasized Seitz sentiment.

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As one of America’s most influential critics, the comparison of Ebert to other powerful critical perspectives was inevitable and sometimes seemed ingenuine. A moment seemed out of place when debating the critical integrity of Pauline Kael, legendary New York film, “indulging in a bit of Windy City defensiveness when it portrays… New York-based '60s and '70s critics as egghead types.” A critic and mentee, Matt Zoller Seitz (for RogerEbert.com) was pleased by, but resents a  interview subject forcibly laughing, “F*** Pauline Kael!” He further explains New York critics like Kael, “were as direct and democratically-minded as Ebert.” (Seitz 2) Disparaging Kael when several of Kael’s books lie in view on Ebert’s shelf was incongruous to say the least and if being truly critical: it is sexist and illogical.

Ebert may have been best known across the country for two aspects of his career: the televised criticisms with Gene Siskel and the trademarked “two thumbs up!” the two created indicating a positive review. Siskel, a competing critic, saw himself as a playboy and often opposed Ebert’s opinions on the television show. Ebert said they saw themselves “as full service, one-stop film critics. We didn’t see why the other was necessary.” The exceedingly quirky critics maintained a mutual respect for each other, even blossoming into great friends while constantly differing. The seriousness of the hard-headed men’s fallouts only strengthened their reconciliations and future relationship. The main relationship in the film, however, is Ebert’s clearly devoted and loving wife, Chaz, who is constantly by his bedside.

 

Chaz is introduced while speaking to a nurse about Ebert’s transportation, worried about having to pass through the morgue a second time on their way out. This sets a tone of morbid levity the film acquires as the idea of Ebert’s death becomes more absolute. Chaz recounts Roger’s final moments, wherein she learned he secretly signed a “do not resuscitate” order. The film concludes where it began, the Chicago theater dedicating an event to Ebert’s life. Ebert was offered “the sun and the moon” from other publications such as The Washington Post, but he never left the windy city. The final shot of the film is a hand drawn portrait memorializing Roger Ebert, hanging beside drawings of other great Chicago characters. The gesture of memorializing Roger Ebert in a comfortable shadowy Chicago bar displays the director’s admiration for Roger’s devotion to cinema and reverence for the life he created.