Life Itself Page #4

ever given to a movie critic.

Roger wrote his movie reviews

as if he were sitting

in the 15th row,

taking notes with one hand

and eating popcorn with the other.

But he didn't simplify things.

It envelops us in a red membrane

of passion and fear.

And in some way that

I do not fully understand,

it employs taboos and ancient

superstitions to make its effect.

I think the way

that he writes,

that sort of clear, plain,

Midwestern newspaper style,

conveys enormous intelligence,

encyclopedic learning,

but doesn't condescend,

doesn't pander.

Roger would become the definitive

mainstream film critic

in American letters.

He made it possible

for a bigger audience,

a wider audience to appreciate

cinema as an art form.

Because he really loved it.

Really, really loved films,

and he did not get caught up

in certain ideologies

about what cinema should be.

After he won the Pulitzer,

if he had a mind

to go to The New York Times,

he could've done that,

The Boston Globe,

The LA Times, no problem.

Ben Bradley, editor

of The Washington Post,

of Watergate fame,

went after Roger hard.

Offered him the sun and the moon.

Ebert just kept saying no.

He said, "I'm not gonna

learn new streets..."

...which is very Ebert-like.

The Sun-Times

went through rough times.

So many regimes.

The Murdoch era

which had crashed the paper.

So many people left.

And Roger remained steadfast.

I remember Roger saying,

"I'm not gonna run away."

- Right.

- These are my colleagues

and not everybody

can get another job.

If someone went across the street

for a job, they were selling out.

You didn't even say

the Tribune.

You'd just say

went across the street.

It was a huge clash

in political difference

between the Sun-Times

and the Tribune.

We were a working class paper.

And we reached

the black community.

The Tribune was

a very wealthy paper.

I mean, look at the Tribune tower.

This huge gothic structure

studded at its base

with all the great art works

of the world.

You know, here is part

of the pyramid of Giza.

And you're thinking, what?

Did the Tribune guy go out with

a chisel and steal this thing?

From the day

the Chicago Tribune

made Gene Siskel

its film critic,

we were professional enemies.

For the first five years

we knew one another,

Siskel and I hardly spoke.

When Gene and I were asked

to work together on a TV show,

we both said we'd

rather do it with someone else.

Anyone else.

The name of our show is Opening

Soon at a Theatre Near You,

two film critics

talking about the movies.

And this is Roger Ebert

from the Chicago Sun-Times.

And right over here

is Gene Siskel

from the Chicago Tribune

and Channel 2 news.

Gene and Roger

were sitting kind of pinioned,

in director's chairs,

looking into the camera

very seriously,

talking about the movie.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

just had the audience

tearing up the seats with joy.

Yeah, and also, tearing up a little

my enjoyment of the film.

They were applauding

even during the credits...

It was stiff, and wooden.

But when Foreman backs up and tries

to make his big points

about the establishment

and authority...

But there was

something there.

It was interesting

to hear two people

who knew what they were talking

about, talk about a movie.

Bremen Freedom

by Rainer Werner Fassbinder,

one of the new generation

of West German directors...

Roger loved the idea of

being on public television.

He had been on it before

on a show where he introduced

films by Ingmar Bergman.

It was awful.

And in this movie

his name is Spegel,

which is Swedish for "mirror."

It was a deer caught

in the headlights.

What is real

and what is illusion,

and who's being fooled

by the art?

Is it the artist,

or his audience, or both?

And the movie's ending,

a confrontation

with the heavyweight champion

of the world...

Roger needed to learn

how to write for television.

...emotionally fulfilling scenes

I've seen in a long time.

To keep sentences short.

He would get irritated

and he would say,

"Thea, I have a Pulitzer Prize."

And I would say to him,

"Roger, I know that,

but that doesn't mean you know

how to write for television."

And right through that last scene

I was really loving Taxi Driver,

because up until that point,

the relationship between

De Niro and Cybill Shepherd

has been electric...

Gene was a natural.

He was one of these people,

he could talk to the camera.

He had a huge

handlebar mustache.

And so I just said,

"That is a funny looking thing

on your face, get rid of it."

I thought, these two guys

would never be on television.

These are unusual,

odd-looking characters

for the medium, TV,

that's all beautifully quaffed,

and beautiful teeth,

and everything's fine.

And they dressed

like a couple of clowns

if they wore

these outfits today.

You couldn't make Siskel and Ebert

if you were Dr. Frankenstein.

I think in the beginning

it was very difficult.

Gene sat in the back row,

Roger had his favorite seat.

They left without saying

a word to one another.

We both thought of ourselves

as full service,

one-stop film critics.

We didn't see why

the other one was necessary.

Alone together in an elevator,

we would study the numbers

changing above the door.

Their lifestyles couldn't have

been more different.

Roger was single.

He was an only child.

Gene, in childhood,

lost both his parents,

one after the other.

He was a philosophy major

at Yale.

While Roger was, you know,

one of the good old boy

news reporters.

Gene just was more of a...

for lack of a better word,

elegant character.

He caught the eye of Hugh Hefner,

and he was adopted

by the clan at the mansion.

And he traveled with Hefner

in the Bunny Jet.

Even though Roger wrote

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,

I think Gene lived the life

for a while.

The perfect matching

of opposites, Siskel and Ebert,

Laurel and Hardy,

Oscar and Felix,

really made Sneak Previews

a sitcom about two guys

who lived in a movie theater.

And how Roger and I go to the movies

as critics is the subject

of this special take two program

on Sneak Previews.

- Hi, Gene.

- Hi, Roger.

In every theater I have

a favorite seat I like to sit in.

In the last row,

sort of off to the side.

Not just kind of reading

or speaking criticism,

but acting out these roles.

I always choose a seat

that's twice as far back

from the screen

as the screen is wide.

Then you must make

a friend of horror.

Horror and moral terror.

I think we can

save ourselves a lot of time

if I admit to you right now

that although I think

the last half hour works,

I doubt if I can ever

convince you of that,

and that the first

two hours of the film

consist of some of the most

beautiful, heartbreaking, tragic,

memorable footage of war

that I've ever seen.

I think that you can show almost

anything to do with Vietnam,

and people feel,

"Oh, my God, the human waste."

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