Many years ago I was asked to speak to budding journalists in a college about film reviewing. I have no idea what made them do that or what they thought about my session. Actually, I have a fairly good idea about the latter – they never asked me back! Two things I said then remained with me. One was, of course, that reviewing was a very personal thing and very different from reporting. Something I fervently endorse.
The other was that reviewers should first get rid of their envy before critiquing a movie. The way I looked at it, all reviewers had to love movies. Period. And all movie-lovers had to have a burning desire to make a movie or be a part of one in some way or other. But he has still not gotten down to doing it. The filmmaker, on the other hand, has already done it. He has crossed over. This meant the first feeling a reviewer may have towards a filmmaker is jealousy. Without overcoming this jealously, we can only find faults, not review or critique. This is a very personal way of looking at reviewing, but then you already read my first point.
When I hear that Roger Ebert has passed on, I think of him as someone who has already dabbled in filmmaking, but decided reviewing is far more fun. He had no jealousy to speak of. Just a passion for a medium that spoke to him. This passion, and the desire to spread that love, made him one of the critics I most admire.
One of the few things I am really thankful in life is I discovered Roger Ebert the film critic, far before I found out about Roger Ebert the Pulitzer Prize winner or Roger Ebert the co-host of the most famous television show about movies. I used to visit the site Metacritic.com and read reviews about movies I had watched. None of the reviewers were familiar names, but soon Roger Ebert and the Chicago Sun-Times got imprinted in my mind. Ebert’s was the review I would keep for the last because he was my favourite writer and it didn't matter if our views matched.
In my earlier days of reviewing, I preferred to review bad movies as it gave me greater room for creativity. I could rubbish a movie in multiple ways, but singing praises was not so easy when I was not happy with my technical knowledge of films. Then I read Ebert’s reviews. What came through in every one of them was his humanity. He understood how hard it was to make a movie and would try to find something positive, in the middle of all the crap. For him, what was in the movie mattered. But the movie mattered more.
I wish I had the courage to post some comment on his blog. Mention something that might have prompted a reply. He was known to be someone who wanted to be in touch with his readers. The opportunity will never come again. Maybe I will learn a lesson from that. But for now my personal connection with movies and my personal connection with Roger Ebert are intertwined.
Thank you, sir. I hope to meet you at the movies some day.
Nice and heartwarming.
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