Roger Ebert Interview

Roger Ebert

In the century that film critics have been writing about and dissecting the value of film, only one of this elite group of writers, one of a group of generally talented critics, has ever trademarked his thumb: Roger Ebert. With […]

by Chris Neumer

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In the century that film critics have been writing about and dissecting the value of film, only one of this elite group of writers, one of a group of generally talented critics, has ever trademarked his thumb: Roger Ebert. With Warner Brothers releasing his favorite film, Citizen Kane, to DVD, Ebert stepped up and delivered one of the best DVD commentary tracks in recent memory. He spoke to me passionately in September of 2001, about Citizen Kane. I took great pleasure in speaking to the only Pulitzer Prize winner to have written a script for a Roger Corman movie.

The day before I was scheduled to interview Roger Ebert, I attended a press screening of director Richard Linklater’s new film, Waking Life. Which I loathed.

Originally I had been told that the screening of Waking Life was at 10:30. That information was incorrect, so when a friend and I arrived at the screening room at 10:30, we were greeted by a woman who didn’t know us, didn’t understand why we were there and didn’t want to take the time to learn. We weren’t there for her film and that was the important thing. We were summarily asked to leave. On the way out, I nearly tripped over Ebert, who was sitting in his seat in the back of the theater.

In the elevator on the way down, my friend looked at me and asked me with great glee if I was going to tell Ebert the next day during our interview that I was the guy who got kicked out of the screening the day before.

“You may remember me, Roger,” my friend imitated me hyperbolically, “I kicked you in the leg and spilled Pepsi on you yesterday as security was dragging me out of the showing of Serendipity.”

For the record, I never mentioned it to Ebert. I would have also been much better off having missed the following Waking Life screening. Which I loathed. I didn’t mention that to Ebert (who gave the film four stars) either. It all evened out though when Ebert finished the conversation off by calling me ‘Randy’

CHRIS NEUMER: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.

ROGER EBERT: My pleasure.

CHRIS NEUMER: I was at the screening of Waking Life yesterday. I was debating about introducing myself to you, since I knew I was going to speak with you today, but never got the opportunity.

ROGER EBERT: I liked that movie.

CHRIS NEUMER: I thought the way Linklater put a new spin on the animation was nice, but I thought the dialogue was a little obtuse. I don’t know how that would appeal to a lot of people.

ROGER EBERT: Yeah,

CHRIS NEUMER: But it was very different film

ROGER EBERT: Yeah…

CHRIS NEUMER: And onto Citizen Kane.

ROGER EBERT: Okay.

CHRIS NEUMER: You’ve done two commentary tracks for DVDs, right?

ROGER EBERT: Yes. Dark City and this one.

CHRIS NEUMER: How did you get involved in this?

ROGER EBERT: In both cases, it was a labor of love. I don’t feel that I can accept payment for doing these. And in regards to Dark City, it’s just a very, very good movie that people have not given the proper attention to. With Citizen Kane, Warner Brothers asked me and I said ‘yes’, as any movie critic would, because it’s such a great film. I did feel pretty familiar with [Citizen Kane] because I’ve been through it a shot at a time many times over the years. I have this approach where, at film festivals or classes or on campuses, we go through the film a shot at a time and try to analyze it in terms of everything that’s there to talk about. Sometimes we take as long as 10 hours to work through a film. And I’ve been through Citizen Kane many times that way so I felt pretty familiar with it as a work. I know that this disc really benefits from having [Peter] Bogdanovich’s commentary track on it as well. He knew well, very, very well, and you can hear on his commentary all his insights that he’s gathered from hours and years of conversations.

 

CHRIS NEUMER: He did another commentary for The Third Man that was also very interesting.

ROGER EBERT: Of course, I said yes. And I think that people were waiting for this DVD because Citizen Kane was missing. It wasn’t out on DVD and people wondered why it wasn’t. Warner Brothers wound up with the rights after several sales. The RKO library was purchased by–I don’t know what all happened, but [Citizen Kane] got to MGM and Ted Turner bought MGM and Time/Warner bought Ted Turner, so they wound up with the rights to it and they just really wanted to make it look good. And I think the disc looks great. It’s the best and crispest transfer I’ve ever seen.

CHRIS NEUMER: That definitely benefits the style and presentation of the story as well.

ROGER EBERT: Yeah.

CHRIS NEUMER: One thing that’s always impressed me about the way you write and the way you talk about film is the way that you effectively bridge the gap between a very literary mentality and a general 30 second preview kind of thing. Even though I’ve seen the film several times myself, it was still very interesting to hear you describing different elements of the movie and how they were shot, like how the table pulls apart in Mrs. Kane’s boarding house.

ROGER EBERT: With the little hat rocking.

CHRIS NEUMER: I thought that was really interesting and it was at that moment that it surprised me that there weren’t more commentary tracks by critics or film scholars … Of course if the movie in question was terrible, that might leave the studios open for all kinds of trouble.

ROGER EBERT: There are different kinds of commentary tracks and sometimes it sounds like three of the actors got together with a six pack or the director will just kind of reminisce. He’ll see an actor and it will remind him of something. And those are all interesting as well, but I think paying attention to the structure and the technique [of a film] is useful as well.

CHRIS NEUMER: I think that’s why having multiple commentary tracks works so well. It gives you a little bit of both.

ROGER EBERT: Oddly enough, Bogdanovich and I went through Citizen Kane a shot at a time together once on the Telluride Film Festival 25th Anniversary Cruise to Europe on the QE2 and that was an experience because most of the people we were doing it for were not sophisticated movie goers. I remember one guy who–we pointed out that none of the earlier shots of Xanadu match and he says, “How can you call this a great film when already it’s only five minutes old and you’re pointing out all these mistakes?”

CHRIS NEUMER: Is there any response that you can give to that question?

ROGER EBERT: (laughs) Well, we tried to be polite I think.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s good to see that you took the high road. You were just touching on this about how you were able to champion the films that are excellent films, like Dark City, that deserve more recognition but just don’t get it. I was recently speaking with Kasi Lemmons and she talked at length about how much you helped Eve’s Bayou succeed. It’s interesting and underrated, the ability of a given critic to bring audiences to films like this that would slip under the radar.

ROGER EBERT: You know that’s the only chance some of these films have because the studios are all dazzled by the Friday night and opening weekend grosses. If a movie isn’t a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy. The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise. Of course, every fall we get a little respite during Oscar season when theaters are permitted to show good movies for three or four months. But her movie, it’s interesting, that was the top grossing independent film of the year. So in it’s own terms it was a success, I think it made about $15 million in theaters and it has an afterlife on video. But for a movie like that, that is a hit.

CHRIS NEUMER: Just the number of audience member who truly connected with the plot material was good as well. Continuing on the topic of opening weekends, I had a question for you that I’ve wondered about for some months now.

ROGER EBERT: Okay.

CHRIS NEUMER: Opening weekend for Tomb Raider, there was a big ad in the Tribune with a headlining quote from Earl Dittman–(sarcastically) who I hold in especially high esteem–and the next weekend your quotes reigned supreme.

ROGER EBERT: Which film was this again?

CHRIS NEUMER: Tomb Raider.

ROGER EBERT: Uh huh.

CHRIS NEUMER: I was curious, were you able to screen that in time to write a review for that week? I just found it very interesting that Paramount would choose use your quotes the second week and Earl Dittman’s opening weekend.

ROGER EBERT: I think that probably the–I don’t give quotes to studios. They have to get those out of the paper or from television. So they wouldn’t have had my quote opening day.

CHRIS NEUMER: So there was no advance screening?

ROGER EBERT: No, it was screened and my review appeared on opening day. But until my review appeared, they couldn’t get their hands on the quote. Because I don’t give the studios advanced quotes or an advanced look at my reviews. I think the readers deserve to read my reviews before the studios do. So until it appears in the paper or it plays on television, they can’t use it because they don’t have it. So frequently, my quotes are not in the opening days ads.

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you think that the Internet has brought a lot of change to the world of film criticism?

ROGER EBERT: I’ll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly. Some of the stuff that’s on the Internet is just gossip or kids saying that movies suck and stuff like that but there are very good critics on the Internet. Ed Gonzalez of Flat Magazine and Charles Taylor are two. All over the web there are some very good critics and it’s become for people who are interested. It’s become a very good way to get to reviews and involve yourself in discussions.

CHRIS NEUMER: And quite a cheap way to publish as well.

ROGER EBERT: Yes.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s an interesting take on that. You don’t often hear many people talking about how the Internet has brought new quality light to a field like criticism. Most people are simply happy talking about the fan sites and how bad they are.

ROGER EBERT: You know I write a monthly column for Yahoo Internet Life Magazine. A couple of times they’ve asked me to rank the best movie sites or mention the best movie sites and–so I also use it as a reference–and the bad ones you just don’t go back to; you just don’t bookmark those.

CHRIS NEUMER: Naturally.

ROGER EBERT: So the good ones you do. Salon has a lot of really good writers. David Edelstein’s slate is very good. There is good original film criticism on the web. And of course James Bordanalli, who has become a friend of mine over the years, he was a computer engineer in New Jersey, who in his spare time reviews probably 200 movies a year. He drives to New York and Philadelphia to see them. He has become respected simply because he’s good.

CHRIS NEUMER: It’s nice to see that talent has the ability to get you noticed in the entertainment business.

ROGER EBERT: Yeah.

CHRIS NEUMER: Turning back to Citizen Kane. When I first saw the film roughly five years ago, the lighting schemes were the element of the picture that impressed me the most, what with the almost gothic lighting. As I watched the film again and listened to your commentary track, I was really impressed with the ambitious nature Welles had–a nature certainly not limited to this film. The horizon had no limits–he was interested in the actors and the technical aspects and the story. Even his technique to use a cloth ceiling so he could conceal a mike up there was clever. Do you see any modern directors who are applying themselves to film the way Welles did?

ROGER EBERT: Well, you know, a lot of modern directors and their movies are influenced by the flat lighting and textbook cutting style of television. You light everything–you don’t use shadows on television because the picture isn’t of high enough quality–so you light everything. There have been some directors in recent years like David O. Russell and Spike Jonze and some classic directors like Scorsese and Oliver Stone, people like Darren Aronofsky who are really trying to work with the canvas and trying to think in visual terms and others who are basically–as good as they are–simply story tellers. That can be okay and that can be a good story, but there are directors who are really visually oriented–DePalma is another one–and there are directors who are really pushing all the time, like Robert Altman, who loves his interlocking plots with his overlapping soundtracks,

CHRIS NEUMER: Do you see any kind of prevailing style in film? The directors you mentioned all are on the independent fringe.

ROGER EBERT: The prevailing style in the mainstream is represented by Michael Bay. This is shorter and shorter takes and less and less dialogue.

CHRIS NEUMER: That movement probably reached a head with Driven then.

ROGER EBERT: Yeah, a movie like that. They seem to be so afraid of losing the attention of the audience that they don’t allow a shot to last long enough for you to get interested in it in the first place. They’re just compulsively cutting. You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can’t take your eyes away from it… Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane. People aren’t thinking that–a director who has to cut all the time to keep his movie moving is desperate, he’s showing that he doesn’t, intrinsically, have any interest in the film. A movie like Armageddon is like a trailer.

CHRIS NEUMER: And sadly, the films that do contain lots of long takes or tracking shots are deemed too slow to be released to the masses.

ROGER EBERT: Exactly. There you go.

CHRIS NEUMER: How much extra energy do you think it took to create the look of Citizen Kane. I remember reading that they actually had to build the sets up off the floor so that Welles could put the camera below floor level.

ROGER EBERT: They built the sets up off the ground so that the camera could be at foot level. For example, in the scene in the morning after the election, his vantage–he was working with [director of photography, Greg] Toland and he was very open to experimentation. Toland was a young, innovative, brash cinematographer who had already experimented with deep focus in The Long Voyage Home by John Ford and, as Bogdanovich points out in his commentary, in the early days of shooting, Welles was saying ‘put the light here, put the light there,’ and finally somebody said, ‘Mr. Welles you’re not supposed to say that. That’s the DP’s job to say that.’ So he went to Toland to apologize and Toland said, ‘Go ahead and do it.’ You can never learn anything about an art form–the way to learn is to watch somebody who doesn’t know what can’t be done.

CHRIS NEUMER: That’s interesting.

ROGER EBERT: So they had a real feeling of constant openness to innovation and experimentation.

CHRIS NEUMER: And they had complete creative control over the project as well. Which I’m sure helped slightly. Do you think that the extra time, energy and money it would take to create a vision like this–sets off the ground, certain characters backlit while the other character are bathed in light–

 

ROGER EBERT: These are all techniques that aren’t too expensive. The movie cost less than a million dollars. That wasn’t chump change in those days, it was an expensive picture. Fading out the background and fading in the foreground–those were techniques that just involved telling the lighting guys what to do–they didn’t really cost any extra money. Even building the sets elevated was not that much more expensive than building them in the first place. Sometimes sets were elevated anyway to make a place for the wires to go. This was not an expensive movie. The whole grand hall of Xanadu, for example, was done with a staircase that was already there at RKO, that they borrowed, and statues, a big fireplace and shadows. They didn’t have any back walls in that room. They didn’t have to build them and put windows in them and lamps next to them, they just draped them with black velvet so you couldn’t see them. You just assumed that there were walls back there.

CHRIS NEUMER: Yes, but some of these techniques do take a certain amount of time or creativity to conceive of in the first place.

ROGER EBERT: Yeah they do and Welles had the best. RKO was not a major studio, but as a result, it was not stuck in its way as much as some of the major studios were and people like Toland were very innovative and because they worked at RKO where the pictures tended to be a little cheaper, they were a little better at working faster.

CHRIS NEUMER: That always helps.

ROGER EBERT: I was supposed to call someone else at 3:45, what time have you got?

CHRIS NEUMER: Just about that.

ROGER EBERT: Well, let’s get one more question here, he can wait.

CHRIS NEUMER: Are you going to be attending any of the screenings for the Chicago Film Festival next week?

ROGER EBERT: I’ve seen about half the movies already at other festivals and I have to continue to see the mainstream films, the new openings, and it’s funny how the interlocking schedules work with the different festivals. You go to Toronto and you see the films that are going to open, but when you come back here, you have to see other films that are going to open, so… I’ve seen about half of them and it should be a good festival based on the films that I’ve seen.

CHRIS NEUMER: I’ve only seen a handful myself but it does look promising.

ROGER EBERT: They have movies like Amelie, In the Bedroom and Waking Life and they have Heist, the new David Mamet movie…

CHRIS NEUMER: Yeah, and that’s a lot better choice for an opening night film than Collateral Damage.

ROGER EBERT: Of course they’d love something big, so you can get a big star in. That’d be what they want.

CHRIS NEUMER: I can see why they might want that though. Thanks for your time.

ROGER EBERT: My pleasure, Randy–er, Chris.