![]() ![]() And frankly, he was more interesting than most of them. Roger was also a great American story-a colorful, self-created character who pulled off something seemingly impossible for a critic: He became as well-known as the stars he was reviewing. Watching this plump, breezy man be devoured by disfiguring cancer, yet only grow wiser and more gracious-well, Roger was my idea of achieving the ancient goal of having a good death. This was partly because I grew to like him and to admire his democratic instincts-he talked to ordinary people as easily as to his fellow celebrities-and partly because he handled terrible adversity with a grace that I envied far more than his fame. I still think that, but over the years my feelings about Roger (as I came to know him) changed. I didn’t share his taste and thought his TV show with Gene Siskel had made the world worse by reducing movie culture to a question of thumbs. The first time I met Roger Ebert-this was at the Toronto International Film Festival-he was famous and garrulous, a film-critic grandee, while my feisty younger self was sniffy with disapproval. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |