This is the last piece Roger wrote, in celebration of his 46 years as a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, April 3, 2013. He passed away the next day.
A LEAVE OF PRESENCE
Thank you. Forty-six years ago on April 3, 1967, I became the film
critic for the Chicago Sun-Times. Some of you have read my reviews and
columns and even written to me since that time. Others were introduced
to my film criticism through the television show, my books, the website,
the film festival, or the Ebert Club and newsletter. However you came
to know me, I’m glad you did and thank you for being the best readers
any film critic could ask for.
Typically, I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are
carried by Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year,
I wrote the most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post
or two a week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which
is why I’m taking what I like to call “a leave of presence.”
What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going
away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave
the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by
me. What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized
about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.
At the same time, I am re-launching the new and improved
Rogerebert.com and taking ownership of the site under a separate entity,
Ebert Digital, run by me, my beloved wife, Chaz, and our brilliant friend, Josh Golden of Table XI.
Stepping away from the day-to-day grind will enable me to continue as a
film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and roll out other projects
under the Ebert brand in the coming year.
Ebertfest, my annual film festival, celebrating its 15th year, will
continue at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, my alma
mater and home town, April 17-21. In response to your repeated requests
to bring back the TV show “At the Movies,” I am launching a fundraising
campaign via Kickstarter in the next couple of weeks. And gamers beware,
I am even thinking about a movie version of a video game or mobile app.
Once completed, you can engage me in debate on whether you think it is
art.
And I continue to cooperate with the talented filmmaker Steve James on the bio-documentary he, Steve Zaillian and Martin Scorsese are making about my life. I am humbled that anyone would even think to do it, but I am also grateful.
Of course, there will be some changes. The immediate reason for my
“leave of presence” is my health. The “painful fracture” that made it
difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It
is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to
attend as many movies as I used to. I have been watching more of them on
screener copies that the studios have been kind enough to send to me.
My friend and colleague Richard Roeper and other critics have stepped up
and kept the newspaper and website current with reviews of all the
major releases. So we have and will continue to go on. At this point in
my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what
it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can
force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I
have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write
about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may
wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.
I’ll also be able to review classics for my “Great Movies”
collection, which has produced three books and could justify a fourth.
For now, I am throwing myself into Ebert Digital and the redesigned,
highly interactive and searchable Rogerebert.com. You’ll learn more
about its exciting new features on April 9 when the site is launched.
In addition to housing an archive of more than 10,000 of my reviews
dating back to 1967 we will also feature reviews written by other
critics. You may disagree with them like you have with me, but will
nonetheless appreciate what they bring to the party. Some I recruited
from the ranks of my Far Flung Correspondents, an inspiration I had four
years ago when I noticed how many of the comments on my blog came from
foreign lands and how knowledgeable they were about cinema.
We’ll be recruiting more critics and it is my hope that some of the
writers I have admired over the years will be among them. We’ll offer
many more reviews of Indie, foreign, documentary and restored classic
revivals. As the space between broadcast television, cable and the
internet morph into a hybrid of content, we will continue to spotlight
the musings of Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic Tom Shales, as well as
the blog “Scanners”
by Jim Emerson, who I first met at Microsoft when he edited Cinemania.
The Ebert Club newsletter, under editor Marie Haws of Vancouver, will be
expanded to give its thousands of subscribers even bigger and better
benefits.
For years I devoutly took every one of my tear sheets, folded them
and added them to a pile on my desk. The photo above shows the height of
that pile in 1985 as it appeared on the cover of my first book about
the movies published by my old friends John McMeel and Donna Martin of
Andrews & McMeel. Today, because of technology, the opportunities to
become bigger, better and reach more people are piling up too. The fact
that we’re re-launching the site now, in the midst of other challenges,
should give you an idea how important Rogerebert.com and Ebert Digital
are to Chaz and me. I hope you’ll stop by, and look for me. I’ll be
there.
So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies.
