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Life Itself

Crit

I've been putting off this post because, even more than usually, I just don't know what to say. Oh, I'm not conflicted about whether I liked it (yes, very much) or about whether I recommend it (absolutely to any film junkie, and less emphatically to everyone else).

But the fact that Ebert and I lived in the same community at different times--even worked at the same newspaper--makes it personal; the fact that his and Gene Siskel's were the first voices of film review I ever heard brings it closer still; and the fact that the real subject of this film about a most vital man is mortality, a mortality advertised by the Joker's death mask the ravages of cancer left of his face, makes anything I say seem trivial. More trivial than usual, I mean.

So maybe the way to go is: things I learned. That Roger nearly killed himself with booze, then quit just like that. That he and Gene could be way more vicious to each other in outtakes than we ever got to see onscreen. That Leonard Cohen's prolixity once saved Roger's life. That finding Chaz late in life may not exactly have saved his life at the time, but it made it worth saving when the question began to arise with distressing regularity.

A beautiful, complicated portrait of a complicated, mostly beautiful life. Oh, and by the way, filmmaker Steve James asks too late for his fast-fading subject to answer, but I'm confident that this is the source of the title of the autobiography that was appropriated by the film. At least I'd be very disappointed to find out otherwise:

And that's how I discovered the secret, that elusive ingredient, that [rowdy midnight audience: "Who gives the best head on Star Trek?"] SPARK that is the breath of life . . . ["Did you just spit in your hand?"] Yes, ["Do you know how to fuck?"] I have that knowledge . . . ["What do you hold between your legs?"] I hold the secret . . . ["To life?"] to life . . . ["Itself?"] itself!