1967–1974: Early writings

Ebert (right) with Russ Meyer in 1970

Ebert began his career as a film critic in 1967, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times.^[16] That same year, he met film critic Pauline Kael for the first time at the New York Film Festival. After he sent her some of his columns, she told him they were "the best film criticism being done in American newspapers today."^[12] That same year, Ebert's first book, a history of the University of Illinois titled An Illini Century: One Hundred Years of Campus Life, was published by the university's press. In 1969, his review of Night of the Living Dead was published in Reader's Digest.^[32]

Ebert was one of the first critics to champion Bonnie and Clyde, calling it "a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking and astonishingly beautiful. If it does not seem that those words should be strung together, perhaps that is because movies do not very often reflect the full range of human life." He concluded: "The fact that the story is set 35 years ago doesn't mean a thing. It had to be set some time. But it was made now and it's about us."^[33]

Thirty-one years later, he wrote "When I saw it, I had been a film critic for less than six months, and it was the first masterpiece I had seen on the job. I felt an exhilaration beyond describing. I did not suspect how long it would be between such experiences, but at least I learned that they were possible."^[34] He wrote Martin Scorsese's first review, for Who's That Knocking at My Door (then titled I Call First), and predicted the young director could become "an American Fellini."^[35]

In addition to film, Ebert occasionally wrote about other topics for the Sun-Times, such as music. In 1970, Ebert wrote the first published concert review of singer-songwriter John Prine, who at the time was working as a mailman and performing at Chicago folk clubs.^[36]

Ebert co-wrote the screenplay for the Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and sometimes joked about being responsible for the film, which was poorly received on its release yet has become a cult film.^[37] Ebert and Meyer also made Up! (1976), Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979), and other films, and were involved in the ill-fated Sex Pistols movie Who Killed Bambi? In April 2010, Ebert posted his screenplay of Who Killed Bambi?, also known as Anarchy in the UK, on his blog.^[38]

Beginning in 1968, Ebert worked for the University of Chicago as an adjunct lecturer, teaching a night class on film at the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.^[39] In 1975, Ebert received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.^[40] In October 1986, while continuing to work for the Sun-Times and still based in Chicago, Ebert replaced Rex Reed as the New York Post chief film reviewer.^[41]

1975–1999: Stardom with Siskel & Ebert

Co-host Gene Siskel at the 1989 Academy Awards

In 1975, Ebert and Gene Siskel began co-hosting a weekly film-review television show, Sneak Previews, which was locally produced by the Chicago public broadcasting station WTTW.^[42] The series was later picked up for national syndication on PBS.^[42] The duo became well known for their "thumbs up/thumbs down" review summaries.^[42][43] Siskel and Ebert trademarked the phrase "Two Thumbs Up."^[42][44]

In 1982, they moved from PBS to launch a similar syndicated commercial television show named At the Movies With Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert.^[42] In 1986, they again moved the show to new ownership, creating Siskel & Ebert & the Movies through Buena Vista Television, part of the Walt Disney Company.^[42] Ebert and Siskel were known for their many appearances on late night talk shows, appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman sixteen times and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson fifteen times. On one of their appearances on Johnny Carson's show, comedian Chevy Chase, who was on the couch with them, mimicked Ebert behind his back while he was discussing Chase's new movie. They also appeared together on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Arsenio Hall Show, Howard Stern, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

During this time, In 1982, 1983, and 1985, Ebert, along with Siskel, appeared as themselves on Saturday Night Live.^[45][46] For their first two appearances, they reviewed sketches from that night's telecast and reviewed sketches from the "SNL Film Festival" for their last appearance.^[47] In 1991, Ebert and Siskel, appeared in a segment on Sesame Street entitled "Sneak Peek Previews" (a parody of Sneak Previews).^[48] In the segment, the critics instruct the hosts Oscar the Grouch and Telly Monster on how their thumbs up/thumbs down rating system works.^[48] Oscar asks if there could be a thumbs sideways ratings, and goads the two men into an argument about whether or not would be acceptable, as Ebert likes the idea, but Siskel does not.^[48] The two were also seen that same year in the show's celebrity version of "Monster in the Mirror".^[49] In 1995, Ebert and Siskel guest-starred on an episode of the animated sitcom The Critic. In the episode, a parody of Sleepless in Seattle, Siskel and Ebert split and each wants protagonist Jay Sherman, a fellow movie critic, as his new partner.^[50] The following year, Ebert appeared in Pitch, a documentary by Canadian filmmakers Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz.^[51] He made an appearance as himself in a 1997 episode of the Chicago-set television series Early Edition.^[52] In the episode, Ebert consoles a young boy who is depressed after he sees the character Bosco the Bunny die in a movie.^[53]

In 1997, Ebert "wrote to Nigel Wade, then the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, and proposed a biweekly series of longer articles great movies of the past. He gave his blessing... Every other week I have revisited a great movie, and the response has been encouraging."^[54] A collection of these essays were published as The Great Movies (2002); he released two more volumes, and a fourth was published posthumously. For many years, on the day of the Academy Awards ceremony, Ebert appeared with Roeper on the live pre-awards show, An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Arrivals. This aired for over a decade, usually prior to the awards ceremony show, which also featured red carpet interviews and fashion commentary. They also appeared on the post-awards show entitled An Evening at the Academy Awards: The Winners, produced and aired by the ABC-owned KABC-TV in Los Angeles.^[55] Though not making a personal appearance, an honorary effigy of Ebert co-starred in the 1998 remake of Godzilla, played by Michael Lerner as New York City Mayor Ebert.^[56] Ebert provided DVD audio commentaries for several films, including Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), Dark City (1998), Floating Weeds (1959), Crumb (1995), and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). Ebert was also interviewed by Central Park Media for an extra feature on the DVD release of the anime film Grave of the Fireflies. In 1999, Ebert founded his own film festival, Ebertfest, in his hometown, Champaign, Illinois.^[57]

In May 1998 Siskel took a leave of absence from the show to undergo brain surgery. He returned to the show although viewers noticed a change in his physical appearance. Despite appearing sluggish and tired, Siskel continued reviewing films with Ebert and would appear on Late Show with David Letterman. In February 1999, Siskel died of a brain tumor.^[58][59] The producers renamed the show Roger Ebert & the Movies and used rotating co-hosts including Martin Scorsese,^[60] A.O. Scott,^[61] and Janet Maslin.^[62] Ebert wrote of his late colleague: "For the first five years that we knew one another, Gene Siskel and I hardly spoke. Then it seemed like we never stopped." He wrote of Siskel's work ethic, of how quickly he returned to work after surgery: "Someone else might have taken a leave of absence then and there, but Gene worked as long as he could. Being a film critic was important to him. He liked to refer to his job as 'the national dream beat,' and say that in reviewing movies he was covering what people hoped for, dreamed about, and feared."^[63] Ten years after Siskel's death, Ebert blogged about his colleague: "We once spoke with Disney and CBS about a sitcom to be titled Best Enemies. It would be about two movie critics joined in a love/hate relationship. It never went anywhere, but we both believed it was a good idea. Maybe the problem was that no one else could possibly understand how meaningless was the hate, how deep was the love."^[64]

2000–2006: Ebert & Roeper

In September 2000, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper became the permanent co-host and the show was renamed At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper and later At the Movies.^[65] In 2000, Ebert interviewed President Bill Clinton at The White House. Clinton spoke about his love for the movies, his favorite films of 1999, and his favorite films of all time, such as Casablanca (1942), High Noon (1952) and The Ten Commandments (1956). Clinton named Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, and Tom Hanks as his favorite actors.^[66]

In 2003, Ebert made a cameo appearance in the film Abby Singer.^[67] In 2005, Ebert became the first film critic to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[40] In 2004, Ebert appeared in the Sesame Street franchise's direct-to-video special A Celebration of Me, Grover, delivering a review of the Monsterpiece Theater segment of "The King and I".^[68]

2007–2013: RogerEbert.com

Ebert in 2006

Ebert ended his association with the Disney-owned At The Movies in July 2008,^[44] after the studio indicated it wished to take the program in a new direction. As of 2007, his reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad.^[69] Ebert also published more than 20 books and dozens of collected reviews. His RogerEbert.com website, launched in 2002 and originally underwritten by the Chicago Sun-Times,^[70] remains online as an archive of his published writings and reviews while also hosting new material written by a group of critics who were selected by Ebert before his death. Even as he used TV (and later the Internet) to share his reviews, Ebert continued to write for the Chicago Sun-Times until he died in 2013.^[71] On February 18, 2009, Ebert reported that he and Roeper would soon announce a new movie-review program,^[72] and reiterated this plan after Disney announced that the program's last episode would air in August 2010.^[73][74]

Ebert was one of the principal critics featured in Gerald Peary's 2009 documentary For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. He is shown discussing the dynamics of appearing with Gene Siskel on the 1970s show Coming to a Theatre Near You, which was the predecessor of Sneak Previews on Chicago PBS station WTTW. He also expressed his approval of the proliferation of young people writing film reviews today on the internet.^[75] On May 4, 2010, Ebert was announced by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences as the Webby Person of the Year, having found a voice on the Internet following his battle with cancer.^[76] On October 22, 2010, Ebert appeared with Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies during their "The Essentials" series. Ebert selected the films Sweet Smell of Success and The Lady Eve.^[77]

On January 31, 2009, Ebert was made an honorary life member of the Directors Guild of America.^[78] His final television series, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by Bill Kurtis in a brief segment called "Roger's Office,"^[79] as well as a more traditional film reviews in the "At the Movies" format presented by Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky.^[80] The program lasted one season, before being cancelled due to funding constraints.^[81][82] The last review by Ebert published during his lifetime was for the film The Host, which was published on March 27, 2013.^[83][84] The last review Ebert wrote was for To the Wonder, which he gave 3.5 out of 4 stars in a review for the Chicago Sun-Times. It was posthumously published on April 6, 2013.^[85] In July 2013, a previously unpublished review of the film Computer Chess appeared on Ebert's website.^[86] The review had been written in March but had remained unpublished until the film's wide-release date.^[87] Matt Zoller Seitz, the editor for Ebert's website, confirmed that there were other unpublished reviews that would be eventually uploaded to the website.^[87] A second review, for The Spectacular Now, was published in August 2013.^[88]

A biographical documentary about Ebert, Life Itself (2014) directed by Steve James, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.^[89][90] The film was executive produced by Martin Scorsese and includes interviews with Scorsese, Ava DuVernay, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, and numerous critics. The film received critical acclaim and received numerous accolades including a Emmy Award, Producers Guild of America Award, and Critics' Choice Movie Award.

Favorites

In an essay looking back at his first twenty-five years as a film critic, Ebert wrote:

If I had to make a generalization, I would say that many of my favorite movies are about good people... Casablanca is about people who do the right thing. The Third Man is about people who do the right thing and can never speak to one another as a result... Not all good movies are about good people. I also like movies about bad people who have a sense of humor. Orson Welles, who does not play either of the good people in The Third Man, has such a winning way, such witty dialogue, that for a scene or two we almost forgive him his crimes. Henry Hill, the hero of Goodfellas, is not a good fella, but he has the ability to be honest with us about why he enjoyed being bad. He is not a hypocrite. Of the other movies I love, some are simply about the joy of physical movement. When Gene Kelly splashes through Singin' in the Rain, when Judy Garland follows the yellow brick road, when Fred Astaire dances on the ceiling, when John Wayne puts the reins in his teeth and gallops across the mountain meadow, there is a purity and joy that cannot be resisted. In Equinox Flower, a Japanese film by the old master Yasujiro Ozu, there is this sequence of shots: A room with a red teapot in the foreground. Another view of the room. The mother folding clothes. A shot down a corridor with a mother crossing it at an angle, and then a daughter crossing at the back. A reverse shot in the hallway as the arriving father is greeted by the mother and daughter. A shot as the father leaves the frame, then the mother, then the daughter. A shot as the mother and father enter the room, as in the background the daughter picks up the red pot and leaves the frame. This sequence of timed movement and cutting is as perfect as any music ever written, any dance, any poem.^[118]

Ebert argued for the aesthetic values of black-and-white photography and against colorization, writing:

Black-and-white movies present the deliberate absence of color. This makes them less realistic than color films (for the real world is in color). They are more dreamlike, more pure, composed of shapes and forms and movements and light and shadow. Color films can simply be illuminated. Black-and-white films have to be lighted... Black and white is a legitimate and beautiful artistic choice in motion pictures, creating feelings and effects that cannot be obtained any other way.^[119]

Elsewhere, Ebert wrote that "Black and white (or, more accurately, silver and white) creates a mysterious dream state, a world of form and gesture." For readers who didn't appreciate black and white, he offered the following experiment: "Go outside at dusk, when the daylight is diffused. Stand on the side of the house away from the sunset. Shoot some natural-light portraits of a friend in black and white. Ask yourself if this friend, who has always looked ordinary in every color photograph you've ever taken, does not, in black and white, take on an aura of mystery. The same thing happens in the movies."^[118]

Ebert championed animation, particularly the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata.^[120] In his review of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, he wrote: "I go to the movies for many reasons. Here is one of them. I want to see wondrous sights not available in the real world, in stories where myth and dreams are set free to play. Animation opens that possibility, because it is freed from gravity and the chains of the possible. Realistic films show the physical world; animation shows its essence. Animated films are not copies of 'real movies,' are not shadows of reality, but create a new existence in their own right."^[121] He concluded his review of Ratatouille by writing: "Every time an animated film is successful, you have to read all over again about how animation isn't 'just for children' but 'for the whole family,' and 'even for adults going on their own.' No kidding!"^[122]

Ebert championed documentaries, notably Errol Morris's debut Gates of Heaven: "They say you can make a great documentary about anything, as long as you see it well enough and truly, and this film proves it. Gates of Heaven, which has no connection to the unfortunate Heaven's Gate, is about a couple of pet cemeteries and their owners. It was filmed in Southern California, so of course we expect a sardonic look at the peculiarities of the Moonbeam State. But then Gates of Heaven grows ever so much more complex and frightening, until at the end it is about such large issues as love, immortality, failure, and the dogged elusiveness of the American Dream."^[123] Morris credited Ebert's review with putting him on the map.^[124]

He championed Michael Apted's Up films, calling them "an inspired, even noble use of the medium."^[125] Ebert concluded his review of Hoop Dreams by writing: "Many filmgoers are reluctant to see documentaries, for reasons I've never understood; the good ones are frequently more absorbing and entertaining than fiction. Hoop Dreams, however, is not only documentary. It is also poetry and prose, muckraking and expose, journalism and polemic. It is one of the great moviegoing experiences of my lifetime."^[126]

Ebert said that his favorite film was Citizen Kane, joking, "That's the official answer," although he preferred to emphasize it as "the most important" film. He said seeing The Third Man cemented his love of cinema: "This movie is on the altar of my love for the cinema. I saw it for the first time in a little fleabox of a theater on the Left Bank in Paris, in 1962, during my first $5 a day trip to Europe. It was so sad, so beautiful, so romantic, that it became at once a part of my own memories -- as if it had happened to me."^[128] He implied that his real favorite film was La Dolce Vita.^[129]

His favorite actor was Robert Mitchum, and his favorite actress was Ingrid Bergman.^[130] He named Buster Keaton, Yasujiro Ozu, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, and Martin Scorsese as his favorite directors.^[131] He expressed his distaste for "top-10" lists, and all movie lists in general, but did make an annual list of the years best films, joking that film critics are "required by unwritten law" to do so. He also contributed an all-time top-10 list for the decennial Sight & Sound Critics' poll in 1982, 1992, 2002 and 2012. In 2012 he chose, alphabetically, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Apocalypse Now, Citizen Kane, La Dolce Vita, The General, Raging Bull, Tokyo Story, The Tree of Life and Vertigo.^[132]

His favorite Bond film was Goldfinger (1964), and he later added it to his "Great Movies" list.^[133] Several of the contributors to Ebert's website participated in a video tribute to him, featuring films that made his Sight & Sound list in 1982 and 2012.^[134]

Best films of the year

Ebert made annual "ten best lists" from 1967 to 2012. His choices for best film of the year were:

Ebert revisited and sometimes revised his opinions. After ranking E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial third on his 1982 list, it was the only movie from that year to appear on his later "Best Films of the 1980s" list (where it also ranked third).^[135] He made similar reevaluations of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Ran (1985).^[135] Three Colours trilogy (Blue (1993), White (1994), and Red (also 1994)), and Pulp Fiction (1994) originally ranked second and third on Ebert's 1994 list; both were included on his "Best Films of the 1990s" list, but their order had reversed.^[136]

In 2006, Ebert noted his own "tendency to place what I now consider the year's best film in second place, perhaps because I was trying to make some kind of point with my top pick,"^[137] adding, "In 1968, I should have ranked 2001 above The Battle of Algiers. In 1971, McCabe & Mrs. Miller was better than The Last Picture Show. In 1974, Chinatown was probably better, in a different way, than Scenes from a Marriage. In 1976, how could I rank Small Change above Taxi Driver? In 1978, I would put Days of Heaven above An Unmarried Woman. And in 1980, of course, Raging Bull was a better film than The Black Stallion ... although I later chose Raging Bull as the best film of the entire decade of the 1980s, it was only the second-best film of 1980 ... am I the same person I was in 1968, 1971, or 1980? I hope not."

Best films of the decade

Ebert compiled "best of the decade" movie lists in the 2000s for the 1970s to the 2000s, thereby helping provide an overview of his critical preferences. Only three films for this listing were named by Ebert as the best film of the year, Five Easy Pieces (1970), Hoop Dreams (1994), and Synecdoche, New York (2008).

• Five Easy Pieces (1970s)^[138]
• Raging Bull (1980s)^[139]
• Hoop Dreams (1990s)^[140]
• Synecdoche, New York (2000s)^[141]

Genres and content

Ebert was often critical of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system (MPAA). His main arguments were that they were too strict on sex and profanity, too lenient on violence, secretive with their guidelines, inconsistent in applying them and not willing to consider the wider context and meaning of the film.^[142][143] He advocated replacing the NC-17 rating with separate ratings for pornographic and nonpornographic adult films.^[142] He praised This Film is Not Yet Rated, a documentary critiquing the MPAA, adding that their rules are "Kafkaesque."^[144] He signed off on his review of Almost Famous by asking, "Why did they give an R rating to a movie so perfect for teenagers?"^[145]

Ebert also frequently lamented that cinemas outside major cities are "booked by computer from Hollywood with no regard for local tastes," making high-quality independent and foreign films virtually unavailable to most American moviegoers.^[146]

In his review of The Exorcist, he wrote that "I've always preferred generic approach to film criticism; I ask myself how good a movie is of its type."^[147] Some horror fans accused Ebert of elitism and prejudice against the genre, especially because of his dismissive comments about "Dead Teenager Movies."^[148] In 2007, Ebert responded to a question from a horror movie reviewer by saying that he did not disparage horror movie as a whole. He wrote that he drew a distinction between films like Nosferatu and The Silence of the Lambs, which he regarded as "masterpieces," and those that had no content other than teenagers being killed.^[149]

Ebert gave Halloween four stars: "Seeing it, I was reminded of the favorable review I gave a few years ago to Last House on the Left, another really terrifying thriller. Readers wrote to ask how I could possibly support such a movie. But I wasn't supporting it so much as describing it: You don't want to be scared? Don't see it. Credit must be paid to directors who want to really frighten us, to make a good thriller when quite possibly a bad one would have made as much money. Hitchcock is acknowledged as a master of suspense; it's hypocrisy to disapprove of other directors in the same genre who want to scare us too."^[150]

Ebert occasionally accused some films of having an unwholesome political agenda, such as his assertion that Dirty Harry (1971) had a fascist moral position.^[151] He was wary of films passed off as art, which he saw as lurid and sensational. He leveled this charge against such films as The Night Porter (1974).^[152]

Ebert did not believe in grading children's movies on a curve, as he thought children deserved quality entertainment. He began his review of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory by writing: "Kids are not stupid. They are among the sharpest, cleverest, most eagle-eyed creatures on God's green Earth, and very little escapes their notice. You may not have observed that your neighbor is still using his snow-tires in mid-July, but every four-year-old on the block has, and kids pay the same attention when they go to the movies. They don't miss a thing, and have an instinctive contempt for shoddy and shabby work. I make this observation because nine out of ten kids' movies are stupid, witless and display contempt for their audiences. Is that all parents want from kids' movies? That they not have anything bad in them? Shouldn't they have something good in them-- some life, imagination, fantasy, inventiveness, something to tickle the imagination? If a movie isn't going to do your kids any good, why let them watch it? Just to kill a Saturday afternoon? That shows a subtle contempt for a child's mind, I think." He went on to say he thought Willy Wonka was the best movie of its kind since The Wizard of Oz.^[153]

Ebert commented on films using his Catholic upbringing as a point of reference,^[12] and was critical of films he believed were grossly ignorant of or insulting to Catholicism, such as Stigmata (1999)^[154] and Priest (1994).^[155] He also gave favorable reviews of controversial films relating to Jesus Christ or Catholicism, including The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), The Passion of the Christ (2004), and Kevin Smith's religious satire Dogma (1999).^[156] Ebert was described as an agnostic in 2005,^[12] but preferred not being "pigeon-holed".^[157]

Contrarian reviews

Writing in an online magazine Hazlitt about Ebert's reviews, Will Sloan argued that "[t]here were inevitably movies where he veered from consensus, but he was not provocative or idiosyncratic by nature."^[158] Examples of Ebert dissenting from other critics include his negative reviews of such celebrated films as Blue Velvet ("marred by sophomoric satire and cheap shots"),^[159] A Clockwork Orange ("a paranoid right-wing fantasy masquerading as an Orwellian warning"),^[160] and The Usual Suspects ("To the degree that I do understand, I don't care").^[161] He gave only two out of four stars to the widely acclaimed Brazil, calling it "very hard to follow"^[162] and is the only critic on RottenTomatoes to not like it.^[163]

He gave a one-star review to the critically acclaimed Abbas Kiarostami film Taste of Cherry, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival.^[164] Ebert later added the film to a list of his most-hated movies of all time.^[165] He was dismissive of the 1988 Bruce Willis action film Die Hard, stating that it was "inappropriate and wrongheaded interruptions reveal the fragile nature of the plot".^[166] His positive 3 out of 4 stars review of 1997's Speed 2: Cruise Control, "Movies like this embrace goofiness with an almost sensual pleasure"^[167] is one of only three positive reviews accounting for that film's 4% approval rating on the reviewer aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, one of the two others having been written by his At the Movies co-star Gene Siskel.^[168]

Ebert reflected on his Speed 2 review in 2013, and wrote that it was "Frequently cited as an example of what a lousy critic I am," but defended his opinion, and noted, "I'm grateful to movies that show me what I haven't seen before, and Speed 2 had a cruise ship plowing right up the main street of a Caribbean village."^[169] In 1999, Ebert held a contest for University of Colorado Boulder students to create short films with a Speed 3 theme about an object that could not stop moving.^[169] The winning entrant was set on a roller coaster and was screened at Ebertfest that year.^[169]

Other interests

Ebert was an admirer of Werner Herzog, and conducted a Q&A session with him at the Walker Arts Center in 1999. It was there that Herzog read his "Minnesota Declaration" which defined his idea of "ecstatic truth."^[170] Herzog dedicated his Encounters at the End of the World to Ebert, and Ebert responded with an open letter of gratitude.^[171] Ebert often quoted something Herzog told him: "our civilization is starving for new images."^[172] Herzog said he once exhorted Ebert to watch the television reality sitcom The Anna Nicole Show, featuring the former Playboy Playmate, so he could gain a better understanding of the decline in American culture. Ebert watched it.^[173]

Ebert was a lifelong reader, and said he had "more or less every book I have owned since I was seven, starting with Huckleberry Finn." Among the authors he considered indispensable were Shakespeare, Henry James, Willa Cather, Colette and Simenon.^[174] He writes of his friend William Nack: "He approached literature like a gourmet. He relished it, savored it, inhaled it, and after memorizing it rolled it on his tongue and spoke it aloud. It was Nack who already knew in the early 1960s, when he was a very young man, that Nabokov was perhaps the supreme stylist of modern novelists. He recited to me from Lolita, and from Speak, Memory and Pnin. I was spellbound."^[175] Every time Ebert saw Nack, he'd ask him to recite the last lines of The Great Gatsby. Among then-living authors he admired Cormac McCarthy, and credited Suttree with reviving his love of reading after his illness.^[176]

Ebert was also an advocate and supporter of Asian-American cinema, famously coming to the defense of the cast and crew of Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow (2002) during a Sundance Film Festival screening when a White member of the audience asked how Asians could be portrayed in such a negative light and how a film so empty and amoral could be made for Asian-Americans and Americans. Ebert responded that "nobody would say such a thing to a bunch of White filmmakers: How could you do this to 'your people'? ... Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to represent 'their people'!"^{[177][178][179]} He was a supporter of the film after the incident at Sundance, and also supported a number of Asian-American films, screening them at his film festival (such as Eric Byler's Charlotte Sometimes).^[180]

Ebert attended the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder for many years, where he hosted a program called Cinemus Inerruptus. He would analyze a film with an audience, and anyone in the audience could say "Stop!" to point out something they found interesting. He also served on other panels at the conference. In 2009, Ebert invited Ramin Bahrani to join him in analyzing Bahrani's film Chop Shop a frame at a time. The next year, they invited Werner Herzog to join them in analyzing Aguirre, the Wrath of God. After that, Ebert announced that he would not return to the conference: "It is fueled by speech, and I'm out of gas... But I went there for my adult lifetime and had a hell of a good time."^[181]

Views on technology

Ebert was a strong advocate for Maxivision 48, in which the movie projector runs at 48 frames per second, as compared to the usual 24 frames per second. He was opposed to the practice whereby theaters lower the intensity of their projector bulbs in order to extend the life of the bulb, arguing that this has little effect other than to make the film harder to see.^[182] Ebert was skeptical of the resurgence of 3D effects in film, which he found unrealistic and distracting.^[183]

In 2005, Ebert opined that video games are not art, and are inferior to media created through authorial control, such as film and literature, stating, "video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful," but "the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art."^[184] This resulted in negative reaction from video game enthusiasts,^[185] such as writer Clive Barker, who defended video games as an art form. Ebert wrote a further piece in response to Barker.^[186] Ebert maintained his position in 2010, but conceded that he should not have expressed this skepticism without being more familiar with the actual experience of playing them. He admitted that he barely played video games: "I have played Cosmology of Kyoto which I enormously enjoyed, and Myst for which I lacked the patience."^[187] In the article, Ebert wrote, "It is quite possible a game could someday be great art."^[187]

Ebert had reviewed Cosmology of Kyoto for Wired in 1994, and had praised the exploration, depth, and graphics found in the game, writing "This is the most beguiling computer game I have encountered, a seamless blend of information, adventure, humor, and imagination - the gruesome side-by-side with the divine."^[188] Ebert filed one other video game-related article for Wired in 1994, describing his visit to Sega's Joypolis arcade in Tokyo.^[189]

Marriage

At age 50, Ebert married trial attorney Charlie "Chaz" Hammelsmith (formerly Chaz Hammel-Smith)^[190][191] in 1992.^{[12][192][193][194]} Chaz Ebert became vice president of the Ebert Company and has emceed Ebertfest.^{[195][196][197]} He explained in his memoir, Life Itself, that he did not want to marry before his mother died, as he was afraid of displeasing her.^[198] In a July 2012 blog entry, Ebert wrote, "She fills my horizon, she is the great fact of my life, she has my love, she saved me from the fate of living out my life alone, which is where I seemed to be heading... She has been with me in sickness and in health, certainly far more sickness than we could have anticipated. I will be with her, strengthened by her example. She continues to make my life possible, and her presence fills me with love and a deep security. That's what a marriage is for. Now I know."^[199]

Alcoholism recovery

Ebert was a recovering alcoholic, having quit drinking in 1979. He was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and had written some blog entries on the subject.^[200] Ebert was a longtime friend of Oprah Winfrey, and Winfrey credited him with persuading her to syndicate The Oprah Winfrey Show,^[201] which became the highest-rated talk show in American television history.^[202]

Politics

A supporter of the Democratic Party,^[203] Ebert publicly urged leftist filmmaker Michael Moore to give a politically charged acceptance speech at the Academy Awards: "I'd like to see Michael Moore get up there and let 'em have it with both barrels and really let loose and give them a real rabble-rousing speech."^[204] During a 1996 panel at the University of Colorado Boulder's Conference on World Affairs, Ebert coined the Boulder Pledge, by which he vowed never to purchase anything offered through the result of an unsolicited email message, or to forward chain emails or mass emails to others.^{[205][206][207]}

Ebert endorsed Barack Obama for re-election as president in 2012, citing the Affordable Care Act as one important reason for his support of Obama.^[208] He was also sympathetic to Ron Paul, noting that he "speaks directly and clearly without a lot of hot air and lip flap".^[209] During a review of the 2008 documentary I.O.U.S.A., he credited Paul with being "a lonely voice talking about the debt", proposing based on the film that the US government was "already broke".^[210]

Beliefs

Ebert was critical of intelligent design,^[211] and stated that people who believe in either creationism or New Age beliefs such as crystal healing or astrology should not be president.^[212] Ebert expressed disbelief in supernatural claims in general, calling them "woo-woo,"^[213] though he argued that reincarnation is possible from a "scientific, rationalist point of view."^[214]

Discussing his beliefs, in 2009, Ebert wrote that he did not "want to provide a category for people to apply to [him]" because he "would not want [his] convictions reduced to a word," and stated, "I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist – which I am."^[157] He wrote of his Catholic upbringing: "I believed in the basic Church teachings because I thought they were correct, not because God wanted me to. In my mind, in the way I interpret them, I still live by them today. Not by the rules and regulations, but by the principles. For example, in the matter of abortion, I am pro-choice, but my personal choice would be to have nothing to do with an abortion, certainly not of a child of my own. I believe in free will, and believe I have no right to tell anyone else what to do. Above all, the state does not." He wrote "I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am still awake at night, asking how?^{[lower-alpha 1]} I am more content with the question than I would be with an answer."^[157]

He wrote that "I drank for many years in a tavern that had a photograph of Brendan Behan on the wall, and under it is this quotation, which I memorized: 'I respect kindness in human beings first of all, and kindness to animals. I don't respect the law; I have a total irreverence for anything concerned with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and the old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.' For 57 words, that does a pretty good job of summing it up."^[215] Summarizing his beliefs, Ebert wrote:

"I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out."

— Roger Ebert, Life Itself: A Memoir

Health

Ebert (right) at the Conference on World Affairs in September 2002, shortly after his cancer diagnosis

In early 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer which was successfully removed in February 2002. In 2003, he underwent surgery for cancer in his salivary gland, which was followed up by radiation therapy. He was again diagnosed with cancer in 2006. In June of that year, he had surgery to remove cancerous tissue in the right side of his jaw.^[216] A week later he had a life-threatening complication when his carotid artery burst near the surgery site.^[217] He was confined to bed rest and was unable to speak, eat, or drink for a time, necessitating the use of a feeding tube.^[218]

The complications kept Ebert off the air for an extended period. Ebert made his first public appearance since mid-2006 at Ebertfest on April 25, 2007. He was unable to speak, instead communicating through his wife.^[219] He returned to reviewing on May 18, 2007, when three of his reviews were published in print.^[220] In July 2007, he revealed that he was still unable to speak.^[221] Ebert adopted a computerized voice system to communicate, eventually using a copy of his own voice created from his recordings by CereProc.^[222]

In February 2010, Chris Jones wrote a lengthy profile of Ebert and his health in Esquire.^[223] In March 2010, his health trials and new computerized voice were featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show.^[224][225] In 2011, Ebert gave a TED talk assisted by his wife, Chaz, and friends Dean Ornish and John Hunter, called "Remaking my voice".^[226] In it, he proposed a test to determine the realism of a synthesized voice.^[227]

Ebert underwent further surgery in January 2008 to try to restore his voice and address the complications from his previous surgeries.^[228][229] On April 1, Ebert announced his speech had not been restored.^[230] Ebert underwent further surgery in April 2008 after fracturing his hip in a fall.^[231] By 2011, Ebert was using a prosthetic chin to hide some of the damage done by his many chin, mouth, and throat surgeries.^[232]

In December 2012, Ebert was hospitalized due to the fractured hip,^[233] which was subsequently determined to be the result of cancer.^[234]

Regarding his loss of eating, Ebert wrote that what was sad was "The loss of dining, not the loss of food. It may be personal, but for me, unless I'm alone, it doesn't involve dinner if it doesn't involve talking. The food and drink I can do without easily. The jokes, gossip, laughs, arguments and shared memories I miss. Sentences beginning with the words, 'Remember that time?' I ran in crowds where anyone was likely to break out in a poetry recitation at any time. Me too. But not me anymore. So yes, it's sad. Maybe that's why I enjoy this blog. You don't realize it, but we're at dinner right now."^[235]