The dedications to Roger Ebert continue online, as people share their personal stories of the man as he clearly touched the lives of so many. Of the lot I found the following 20-minute segment from the recent episode of Charlie Rose‘s show one of the more interesting.
Rose’s guests included film critics A.O. Scott from the New York Times and Dana Stevens from Slate along with Werner Herzog as they share their memories and stories on how he influenced their careers.
The clip of Ebert speaking on the Rose show from 2002 is a portion I found particularly interesting as Ebert brings up a favorite quote of his from Robert Warshow: “A man goes to the movies and the critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man.” I’d read this quote from Ebert in the past and it actually changed the way I review movies in that I do my best to offer as personal approach to the films I review as possible and much of that approach came from the way Ebert reviewed movies and that quote. In fact, after reading Warshow’s quote I permanently embedded it into the RopeofSilicon.com masthead back in 2008, which you can see right here from a screen capture of an old RopeofSilicon design from November 13, 2008.
Stevens also brings up Ebert’s review of Alex Proyas‘ Knowing, which was also a topic of conversation around these parts when a one-time RopeofSilicon writer, David Frank, wrote an article for me headlined “So, I Finally Saw Knowing“.
I expect little memories like this will be triggered off and on for years to come. I just thought I’d share and add a little more context to why I found the following segment so fascinating… After all, our personal experiences ultimately guide our opinions, likes and dislikes and without that context how will anyone ever understand where we’re coming from… again, a lesson I learned from Ebert, a man who was always able to articulate whey he liked or disliked a film better than the rest, a fact I would never again doubt after reading his review of Lakeview Terrace, a terrible movie he felt deserved four stars and after reading his review I understood why.
