Roger and Me: Part 1

For those of us who have forged a hobby of making priggish and snarky remarks anonymously over the internet about popular culture, we owe a great deal to Roger Ebert, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times. I was saddened by the news of his passing and went through the rest of the day contemplating the significance of this event. Roger Ebert was one of the few movie critics in the world that enjoyed household name recognition. Through his collaboration with Gene Siskel on Sneak Previews with Siskel and Ebert, Ebert enjoyed much notoriety and fame and was noted for his "everyman" approach to film criticism. When Gene Siskel passed away in 1999, Richard Roeper took over his theater seat and both would continue At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper until 2008. Throughout a 45 year career Roger Ebert kept at it, not only writing weekly reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and 200 other syndicated newspapers but also wrote more than 20 books and curated his own website rogerebert.com.

Vertigo: Best movie ever ---- Arachnophobia: Remains unrecognized for its greatness

He was a real pioneer who shall be missed. I thought for a while and decided my humble way to honor the man I have never met but always admired was to watch his Top Ten favorite movies of all time and give you an honest introspective personal view of such masterpieces in true Ebert fashion. According to the British Film Institute, Roger Ebert has contributed to Sights & Sounds Magazine's Greatest Films of All Time List for the past 30 years. For those of you who don't remember or know, the Sights & Sounds List is the most respected list in the world and is only released every decade. It created a stir this year when Citizen Kane (1941) was finally overtaken from the No. 1 spot in favor if Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). This decade Roger picked:

Must eat monkey!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Citizen Kane (1941)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
The General (1926)
Raging Bull (1980)
Tokyo Story (1953)
The Tree of Life (2010)
Vertigo (1958)

Let's take a look and see what we got.

I'm just far too passive to care right now

La Dolce Vita (1960)
Since La Dolce Vita was one of only two films on the list I have not seen, I sat back and decided to dive right into it. I must admit, I've had my reservations about this film for a very long time. First, I've been aware for a while that La Dolce Vita doesn't have typical story structure. Not altogether a bad thing but whenever that's the case, the film ends up being polarizing; I either love it or hate it and Fellini has not had a good track record with me I'm sorry to say. Thus far I have seen La Strada (1954) which I loved, Satyricon (1969) which I loathed, 8 1/2 (1963) which I found supremely overrated and Nights of Cabiria (1957) which was so-so. If La Dolce Vita was going to impress it needed to gear towards Fellini's neo-realist tenancies and less towards his vulgar costume filled meta-art.

Yea, not so much. I appreciate the material and what it attempted to do (namely make an incitement of flaccid modern bourgeois culture) but each episodic scene became less and less convincing. The movie follows a passive paparazzo who woos his fair share of women while covering a series of subjects and attending multiple parties. The translation of the title means "the good life" probably mocking the mistaken notion that this guy has it all.

It's art I say! ART!!!

While doing some research on the production of La Dolce Vita, I came across a common interpretation of the events in the film. Seven vignettes to represent the seven deadly sins or seven sacraments punctuated by a prelude and an epilogue. I'm not sure about this interpretation and neither was Ebert when he reviewed it in 1997; saying that breaking it down that way would treat the film like a crossword puzzle. Nearly every scene involves basically the same sin only with an increasingly unhappy protagonist passively waltzing in and out of drama. The tone is all over the place, the symbolism is at times prominent yet unclear and with no one to really root for the movie listlessly meanders along until it listlessly ends. For my money Vittorio De Sica is my personal pick for best Italian director. Even his derivative Sophia Loren sex comedies have higher entertainment value than La Dolce Vita.

Citizen Kane (1941)
After watching La Dolce Vita I decided to sit down and watch something I knew I wouldn't be bored with. Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane. Considered for decades to be the best film ever made, Citizen Kane wasn't exactly the cat's meow when first released. Welles made a film a clef of powerful business entrepreneur and newspaperman William Randolph Hearst's life. The last man you wanted to make an enemy of in 1941. Because of the backlash of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles was never allowed to have free reign on another American film project which is a real shame.

Citizen Kane tells the life story of a newspaper magnate who recently died secluded and alone in his mansion. The film tells the story of his meteorically quick rise to prominence, his several marriages and his unsuccessful campaign for public office. Althroughout you as the audience are captivated by the man who once sat on top of the world and quizzical about his last utterance "rosebud."

I think your brain is this big

Now I love this movie, as did Ebert. It's ambitious, it scores on an emotional level, it has some brilliant acting on the part of Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead and Dorothy Comingore but it's the directing, writing and cinematography that made the biggest impact. One thing I appreciate about Welles as a writer and director is his gregarious sense of humor. He likes to toy with his audience sometimes through complex intellectual exercises imbedded in character motivations and sometimes with deceptively simple cheap mirror tricks.

Now I'm not saying Citizen Kane is a funny movie in the sense that its ha-ha funny. Quite the contrary, the movie can at times feel rather heavy. But if you find yourself straying from the story (not really an easy task), you may see some of the trickery at play here. Not bad coming from the guy who first fooled the world with "War of the Worlds" in 1938.

What do these things have in common? No seriously?

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
According to legend, during the premiere of 2001, Rock Hudson walked out of the screening yelling "Will someone tell me what the hell this movie is about?" Today I feel his frustration. Is the movie a marvel? Yes. Is this film ambitious? Yes. A beautiful, poetically entrancing film? Yes. An entertaining film? Well...define entertaining. For while those on its wavelength would certainly benefit from having watched what is still regarded as not just a gold standard in science fiction but the ONLY standard in science fiction, others not inclined to watch ten minutes of flickering, tunneled lights shouldn't bother. My unbiased mind tells me I have just watched something near perfect, yet my biased, more affecting senses yen for something a little more emotionally rewarding.

The only human emotion you see in this movie

I honestly find 2001: A Space Odyseey to be prosaic. Stifled from the movie's top-heavy ambitions and need for perfection that it cannot register on an emotional level; at least not to me. It justifies itself by sending a message about technological society and how one day we will move beyond the tools we use to a higher form of consciousness. It's a message worth postulating and the midriff of the film properly highlights the movie's motif of said tools used for mutually assured destruction versus self-discovery but can't we encompass these themes into a tighter package? Then again I suppose if the film's point was introduced in familiar wrapping it would be easily digestible but also easily forgettable.

Stanley Kubrick's work as a whole just doesn't hold much sway with me. His earlier work like The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960) are to me, the perfect balance between intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying. Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971) Full Metal Jacket (1987) have their moments if only for their macabre sense of humor but 2001 along with Barry Lyndon (1975) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) remain aloof. Too clinical to be engaging.

The Tree of Life (2010)

Tree of Life is similar to 2001. It's a movie with foolhardy ambition that hides its complexity with beautiful imagery. But unlike 2001, Tree of Life is unabashedly personal and unapologetically hopeful. It's inertia is based on conjecture and inhabits many places in my mind both sublime and maddening. It may be because the imagery on the screen (images in the first act notwithstanding) unlocked details and memories dormant in my mind. The exhilaration of jumping off my bike mid pedal, the bitterness of talking back to my father for perceived cruelties, the calmness of being embraced by my mother. The whole spectrum of emotions traveled back and forth between the film and myself that at points I wanted to walk out take a breather.

Because people have two feet

Each segment starts with the same wisps of light, not unlike the first images a baby might see upon being born. The voice-over during these segments speaks of nature and grace; Nature can be selfish and self-gratifying while "Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries." Malick is part of a select few filmmakers who fully appreciates film both for its storytelling capabilities and its potential as a visual medium. Bookend before the family drama, there are vibrant images of the universe forming, microbes taking shape and creatures bravely venturing out from the primordial ooze. As we are introduced to the character of Jack, the eldest son (Hunter McCracken/Sean Penn), we understand that he is meant to present that duality. His story is then put into perspective as occupying a place in time.

Luckily unlike Kubrick's opus, Malick takes natural human impulses and paints a vibrant picture of hope. We as human beings have come to a point in time where we vaguely understand the nature of grace. We look up at the stars or down at the blades grass and try desperately to make connections, find meaning, and hope for salvation. The last scenes show a large group of people greeting each other familiarly on a plane of shallow water. Sean Penn walks through a doorway to join the rest of his family and friends. It's a beautiful image and one I will not soon forget.

Buster Keaton-Nickname: Railsplitter

The General (1928)
The final film in Part 1 of my two part Roger Ebert retrospective, is Buster Keaton's The General (1928). Now I'm a Charlie Chaplin man myself but while The Tramp has an innocent naivety that can be admired, Keaton has Chaplin beat when it comes to sheer physicality. The man was an unstoppable force; able to take collapsing debris, speeding trains and harsh pratfalls with the same stone face that has become his trademark.

Buster Keaton plays Johnnie an locomotive engineer eager to fight for the south in the Civil War but can't because of his important job tending to The General, his beloved steam-engine. But when Union spies steal it to disrupt Southern train-lines, its up to dear old Johnnie to bring it back. He also must rescue his sweet Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) who has wondered into the mix. It's a simple story that requires little setup or explanation but does require enough stunt work to make Jackie Chan think twice.

Jackie Chan? Yea, that guys a pussy

Just like in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) and Sherlock Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton shows absolute fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds both in the story and in front of a camera that doesn't give him a break. The camerawork is pretty elaborate if you keep in mind the movie was made in 1928. My only real beef with The General is its run time. Don't get me wrong, 107 minutes goes by pretty swiftly when you're already a convert to the Order of Keaton. Still Sherlock Jr. was only 45 minutes long, used stunts of varying complexity and honestly, had a more engaging story.

Roger Ebert once described his criticism as "relative, not absolute." He worried very little about consistency and often contradicted himself even while he regaled us with his words. I do not fault him nor anyone who gives an opinion so long as they are willing to balance the intellectual with the emotional; the objective with the subjective, the virtues with the values. True criticism requires introspection and sharing a piece of yourself with an audience. Those who seek to hide themselves in layers of academic prattling do little to sway the masses from avoiding crappy remakes or sequels, or sequels to remakes, or remakes to spin-offs to sequels to movies that shouldn't have been made to begin with. Nor do they sway people to watch movies actually worth their time and $10 ticket price. Roger Ebert understood this. He knew true advocacy came from the heart and that is why he will always remain the best.

Battlefield Earth salutes you Roger Ebert!