TNR: ROGER EBERT'S RISE TO MEDIOCRITY
Jul. 6th, 2005 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidfcooperxposted to cinephilia
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050627&s=ventura063005
ROGER EBERT'S RISE TO MEDIOCRITY.
Star Power
by Elbert Ventura Only at TNR Online
Post date: 06.30.05
On June 23, Hollywood honored someone you would think would be persona non grata: a film critic. Roger Ebert, longtime headliner of his own syndicated show and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, became the first critic to be honored with a star on the Walk of Fame. The honor precedes another accolade next month, when Chicago celebrates Roger Ebert Day on July 12. Coming on the thirtieth year of his syndicated TV show--originally with the late Gene Siskel and now co-starring Richard Roeper--the tributes cement Ebert's standing as the most powerful and influential film critic working today. But if the culture has done much for Roger Ebert, it's less clear what Roger Ebert has done for the culture.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ebert was part of a new wave of film critics who placed film at the center of cultural life. Replacing the gentleman reviewers and dilettantes of the old guard, these critics embraced the new American directors that had infiltrated the system and the European auteurs that had influenced them. As The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter recently rhapsodized, Ebert was a critic who got that the movies were "hard-wired into the baby-boom generation cerebral cortex"--that it was "that generation's secret language."
In 1975, the Pulitzer awarded its prize for commentary to Ebert, the first time in its history that it went to a film critic. But another event that year inarguably had a greater impact on his career. That fall, Chicago's WTTW-Channel 11 began airing a show called "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You," starring Ebert and his rival, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. Renamed "Sneak Previews" two seasons later, the show featured Siskel and Ebert showing clips of movies, discussing them briefly, and giving a "yes" or "no" for each. The show went national a few years later when it was picked up by PBS. By the early 1980s, the two were the most recognizable film critics in the country. In 1986, Siskel and Ebert departed for national syndicator Buena Vista Television and introduced their trademark thumbs-up/thumbs-down rulings.
Those thumbs have since come to emblematize for some all that is wrong with film criticism. In a 1990 piece in Film Comment, Richard Corliss took Siskel and Ebert to task for contributing to the dumbing-down of criticism. "I simply don't want people to think that what they have to do on TV is what I am supposed to do in print," Corliss wrote, a stunningly highbrow reproach from a critic from Time. But you can see what aggravated Corliss. Aspiring to be a serious show about movies, "Siskel & Ebert" instead offered shtick--those imperial thumbs, the occasional unscripted spat--and glib pronouncements. Although the show offered crucial exposure to some independent films, the focus was largely on studio movies that received wide releases. Covering about five movies per episode and devoting much of the time to a recitation of the plots, the show offered bite-sized commentary and didn't hide its consumer-oriented approach.
With its presentation of new movie clips, including some not featured in the films' trailers, "Siskel & Ebert" ended up in a place where, in the words of critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, "reviewing shades into promotion and coverage becomes more important than evaluation." Perhaps the worst consequence of all was how the show paved the way for a new generation of teleprompter readers masquerading as informed critics--Gene Shalit, Rex Reed, Jeffrey Lyons, Joel Siegel. (Siegel once quipped, "Frank Rich got hired because he can write. I got hired because I can read.")
By the time of Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert had become less of a critic and more of a brand--a service journalist dispensing consumer tips. Ebert's decision to replace Siskel with Richard Roeper only confirmed his anti-intellectual bent. With so many critics to choose from--guest co-hosts rotated in the interim--Ebert picked a Sun-Times columnist who, as best as anyone could tell, wasn't qualified for the job at all. Indeed, Roeper has been a disaster, an unapologetically ignorant dabbler who, unfortunately, has been granted instant credibility thanks to Ebert.
It's tempting to read Ebert's Walk of Fame honor as the culminating act in a career defined by middlebrow complacency. In the path from mere critic to cultural institution, Ebert has adopted a pose at once populist and condescending. In a Slate "Movie Club" discussion with fellow critics from a few years ago, Ebert defended his rave of The Green Mile, which some lambasted for its retrograde racial politics, by brushing off his duties. He wrote: "Most of the ideological criticisms of The Green Mile are by and for sophisticated and subtle observers, writing for one another. The average moviegoer with $8 and a seat in an Abilene multiplex is likely to find himself or herself subtly more complex, humane, and liberal after seeing that film than before." In other words, why bother thinking deeply about a movie when the audience won't?
It's a critical approach that explains why I have long ceased to be surprised or edified by his reviews. The worst thing about Pauline Kael was her circumscribed idea of movie pleasure; that same defect can be found in Ebert, particularly in his recent neglect of formally audacious artists from Iran, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Instead of seeking to broaden his reader's experience of movies, he presumes to approximate it, in the process lowering the culture's standards for what makes a good movie. In a recent piece, Ebert gave a three-star rating to The Longest Yard, despite his admission that the movie "represents such a limited idea of what a movie can be and what movies are for." He then went on to cite that phantom common man to defend his thumbs-up, saying that he has in mind an undiscriminating moviegoer whose life is "spent within the reassuring confines of such entertainments." Reducing his job to that of consumer guide, he sells himself, his readers, and the movies short.
And yet he has, in his own way, made valuable contributions to cinephilia. Take "Great Movies," a running feature on his website now in its second anthologized volume. An admirable work of film education, "Great Movies" contains the usual suspects, but also makes room for less heralded selections--John Huston's Beat the Devil, Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, Claude Chabrol's Le Boucher--of which his readers may be unaware. The same zealous impulse animates his Overlooked Film Festival, a film fest that he programs in his native Champaign-Urbana. Now in its seventh year, the festival evinces an adventurousness that isn't evident in his work, touting movies like Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World, Shane Carruth's Primer, and Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool. For years now, Ebert has also participated in frame-by-frame analyses of different movies at various conferences and film festivals, a practice that hints at an intellectual rigor frequently missing from his weekly output.
Perhaps most important is the use of his show as a bully pulpit to promote unnoticed movies. In its finest moments, "Siskel & Ebert" has rescued movies doomed to obscurity--Hoop Dreams, One False Move, The Crying Game--and given them a semblance of mainstream life. To its credit, the show has also aired occasional theme episodes revolving around such subjects as letterboxing, the MPAA ratings scheme, black-and-white cinematography, and colorization, the widest exposure that such issues probably received at the time. And as a novice film buff, I can't deny that the show and Ebert's anthologies gave me my first taste of film criticism. I have long outgrown his show and writings, but it's likely that Ebert may still function as a gateway drug for budding cineastes waiting to be hooked on movies.
Such examples attest to Ebert's conscientious awareness of his power as a critic. Just as important, they make plain his ardent devotion to the movies. You may disapprove of his legacy, you may disagree with his tastes, but you can't deny that he is a sincere cineaste--and, at his best, an infectious one. Complicating any appreciation, however, will always be that tricky issue of stature. If he were just any other critic, Ebert's blatant underestimation of his audience--which he mistakes for respect--and routine analysis would be less worrisome. Unfortunately, he happens to be the face of American film criticism.
cinephiliahttp://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050627&s=ventura063005
ROGER EBERT'S RISE TO MEDIOCRITY.
Star Power
by Elbert Ventura Only at TNR Online
Post date: 06.30.05
On June 23, Hollywood honored someone you would think would be persona non grata: a film critic. Roger Ebert, longtime headliner of his own syndicated show and film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, became the first critic to be honored with a star on the Walk of Fame. The honor precedes another accolade next month, when Chicago celebrates Roger Ebert Day on July 12. Coming on the thirtieth year of his syndicated TV show--originally with the late Gene Siskel and now co-starring Richard Roeper--the tributes cement Ebert's standing as the most powerful and influential film critic working today. But if the culture has done much for Roger Ebert, it's less clear what Roger Ebert has done for the culture.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Ebert was part of a new wave of film critics who placed film at the center of cultural life. Replacing the gentleman reviewers and dilettantes of the old guard, these critics embraced the new American directors that had infiltrated the system and the European auteurs that had influenced them. As The Washington Post's Stephen Hunter recently rhapsodized, Ebert was a critic who got that the movies were "hard-wired into the baby-boom generation cerebral cortex"--that it was "that generation's secret language."
In 1975, the Pulitzer awarded its prize for commentary to Ebert, the first time in its history that it went to a film critic. But another event that year inarguably had a greater impact on his career. That fall, Chicago's WTTW-Channel 11 began airing a show called "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You," starring Ebert and his rival, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. Renamed "Sneak Previews" two seasons later, the show featured Siskel and Ebert showing clips of movies, discussing them briefly, and giving a "yes" or "no" for each. The show went national a few years later when it was picked up by PBS. By the early 1980s, the two were the most recognizable film critics in the country. In 1986, Siskel and Ebert departed for national syndicator Buena Vista Television and introduced their trademark thumbs-up/thumbs-down rulings.
Those thumbs have since come to emblematize for some all that is wrong with film criticism. In a 1990 piece in Film Comment, Richard Corliss took Siskel and Ebert to task for contributing to the dumbing-down of criticism. "I simply don't want people to think that what they have to do on TV is what I am supposed to do in print," Corliss wrote, a stunningly highbrow reproach from a critic from Time. But you can see what aggravated Corliss. Aspiring to be a serious show about movies, "Siskel & Ebert" instead offered shtick--those imperial thumbs, the occasional unscripted spat--and glib pronouncements. Although the show offered crucial exposure to some independent films, the focus was largely on studio movies that received wide releases. Covering about five movies per episode and devoting much of the time to a recitation of the plots, the show offered bite-sized commentary and didn't hide its consumer-oriented approach.
With its presentation of new movie clips, including some not featured in the films' trailers, "Siskel & Ebert" ended up in a place where, in the words of critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, "reviewing shades into promotion and coverage becomes more important than evaluation." Perhaps the worst consequence of all was how the show paved the way for a new generation of teleprompter readers masquerading as informed critics--Gene Shalit, Rex Reed, Jeffrey Lyons, Joel Siegel. (Siegel once quipped, "Frank Rich got hired because he can write. I got hired because I can read.")
By the time of Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert had become less of a critic and more of a brand--a service journalist dispensing consumer tips. Ebert's decision to replace Siskel with Richard Roeper only confirmed his anti-intellectual bent. With so many critics to choose from--guest co-hosts rotated in the interim--Ebert picked a Sun-Times columnist who, as best as anyone could tell, wasn't qualified for the job at all. Indeed, Roeper has been a disaster, an unapologetically ignorant dabbler who, unfortunately, has been granted instant credibility thanks to Ebert.
It's tempting to read Ebert's Walk of Fame honor as the culminating act in a career defined by middlebrow complacency. In the path from mere critic to cultural institution, Ebert has adopted a pose at once populist and condescending. In a Slate "Movie Club" discussion with fellow critics from a few years ago, Ebert defended his rave of The Green Mile, which some lambasted for its retrograde racial politics, by brushing off his duties. He wrote: "Most of the ideological criticisms of The Green Mile are by and for sophisticated and subtle observers, writing for one another. The average moviegoer with $8 and a seat in an Abilene multiplex is likely to find himself or herself subtly more complex, humane, and liberal after seeing that film than before." In other words, why bother thinking deeply about a movie when the audience won't?
It's a critical approach that explains why I have long ceased to be surprised or edified by his reviews. The worst thing about Pauline Kael was her circumscribed idea of movie pleasure; that same defect can be found in Ebert, particularly in his recent neglect of formally audacious artists from Iran, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Instead of seeking to broaden his reader's experience of movies, he presumes to approximate it, in the process lowering the culture's standards for what makes a good movie. In a recent piece, Ebert gave a three-star rating to The Longest Yard, despite his admission that the movie "represents such a limited idea of what a movie can be and what movies are for." He then went on to cite that phantom common man to defend his thumbs-up, saying that he has in mind an undiscriminating moviegoer whose life is "spent within the reassuring confines of such entertainments." Reducing his job to that of consumer guide, he sells himself, his readers, and the movies short.
And yet he has, in his own way, made valuable contributions to cinephilia. Take "Great Movies," a running feature on his website now in its second anthologized volume. An admirable work of film education, "Great Movies" contains the usual suspects, but also makes room for less heralded selections--John Huston's Beat the Devil, Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, Claude Chabrol's Le Boucher--of which his readers may be unaware. The same zealous impulse animates his Overlooked Film Festival, a film fest that he programs in his native Champaign-Urbana. Now in its seventh year, the festival evinces an adventurousness that isn't evident in his work, touting movies like Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music in the World, Shane Carruth's Primer, and Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool. For years now, Ebert has also participated in frame-by-frame analyses of different movies at various conferences and film festivals, a practice that hints at an intellectual rigor frequently missing from his weekly output.
Perhaps most important is the use of his show as a bully pulpit to promote unnoticed movies. In its finest moments, "Siskel & Ebert" has rescued movies doomed to obscurity--Hoop Dreams, One False Move, The Crying Game--and given them a semblance of mainstream life. To its credit, the show has also aired occasional theme episodes revolving around such subjects as letterboxing, the MPAA ratings scheme, black-and-white cinematography, and colorization, the widest exposure that such issues probably received at the time. And as a novice film buff, I can't deny that the show and Ebert's anthologies gave me my first taste of film criticism. I have long outgrown his show and writings, but it's likely that Ebert may still function as a gateway drug for budding cineastes waiting to be hooked on movies.
Such examples attest to Ebert's conscientious awareness of his power as a critic. Just as important, they make plain his ardent devotion to the movies. You may disapprove of his legacy, you may disagree with his tastes, but you can't deny that he is a sincere cineaste--and, at his best, an infectious one. Complicating any appreciation, however, will always be that tricky issue of stature. If he were just any other critic, Ebert's blatant underestimation of his audience--which he mistakes for respect--and routine analysis would be less worrisome. Unfortunately, he happens to be the face of American film criticism.
