Life Itself

In the beginning of Life Itself, Steve James’ documentary on Roger Ebert adapted from his memoir of the same name, Ebert plays a little role reversal with the director.

“The director cuts to a shot of himself filming himself in the mirror,” Ebert says to James from his hospital bed. Without hesitation, James obliges, turning his camera to the mirror and getting the ordered shot. It’s those kind of moments that made Ebert fall in love with movies – or as he called them, “an empathy machine” – in the first place.

It’s no accident that James was tagged to adapt the iconic critic’s memoir Life Itself into a film: In a way, he owes him one. Ebert and his on-air foil, the late Gene Siskel, were responsible for spreading word about James’ ambitious and brilliant documentary Hoop Dreams, which became an art house hit.

And 20 years later, James was enlisted to capture Ebert at his most vulnerable, just as cancer was readying to win the battle Ebert had been waging for years. But Life Itself isn’t a tragedy. Ebert knew his final days were near. He had lived fully and found his partner in life – his wife, Chaz – whose love he describes as “a wind pushing me back from the grave.” At times it’s difficult to see Ebert wasting away in a haze of physical pain, and it’s emotional to see it through Chaz’ eyes, but Life Itself isn’t an obit, it’s a celebration of a great American writer with a strong voice who forever changed the film criticism game.

The film leaps back and forth between archival footage and interviews with friends and filmmakers, and current footage that follows Ebert’s day-to-day struggles (excerpts from the memoir are intertwined using voiceover) and small victories as he navigates through life without the ability to talk (he used a computerized voice synthesizer) and eat. After five years of battling cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands, and then living through his carotid artery bursting as a complication of surgery, his jaw was removed. In 2012, Ebert suffered a hairline fracture in his hip; doctors found cancer had spread to his spine, leaving him unable to walk.

Like all great documentaries, Life Itself constructs a powerful dramatic narrative by capturing life as it happens, unscripted. In one moving scene, he returns home after being at the hospital for several weeks and is overcome with anger after realizing he can no longer walk up the stairs in his house without help.

Life Itself has plenty of sad moments, but goes deep into the story of a triumphant life littered with recognizable tangents. When Ebert was hired by the Chicago Sun Times at 21, he became the youngest film critic at a major newspaper. He was also the first film critic to score a Pulitzer Prize for criticism, in 1975. Ebert penned the screenplay for the cult classic of all cult classics, Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. In the mid ’80s, Ebert helped change the face of film criticism forever with the syndicated television hit, Siskel & Ebert, and is credited with kickstarting the careers of some of our greatest filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese and Errol Morris.

Ebert was also a recovering alcoholic, a loving husband, a stepfather and stepgrandfather. His love of film was infectious and came through in his writing, which also always revealed a little something about who he was. Ebert also found solace in his blog, which became a lifeline for him to post his reviews and thoughts after losing his ability to speak. He says it was the best writing of his life.

“There are no guarantees,” Ebert wrote. “But there is also nothing to fear. We come from oblivion when we are born. We return to oblivion when we die. The astonishing thing is this period of in-between.”

LIFE ITSELF (4) Directed by Steve James • Starring Roger Ebert, Chaz Ebert • Rated R • 115 min. • At Osio Cinemas.