Roger Ebert

Film critic, Screenwriter for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,
1975 Pulitzer Prize Winner, All-around Literary Genius

June 8, 1942 -

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Roger Ebert (right) with good friend and movie entrepreneur Russ Meyer.

by Scott Muoio

For many, many years I thought the study of history was a worthless pursuit. I had heard the old George Santayana cliché hundreds of times, “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” but never did I believe those words, not even for a moment. I still don’t. Over the years, however, I have come to discover that through one’s writings, and a later study of those words, “history,” in a sense, can prove a magical portal into long-since forgotten times and one’s own former self. History, in this subjective sense, can be the most fascinating genre in all of literature. Surprisingly, though, I learned this idea not through The History Channel or John Adams biographies or even chirpy history professors, but instead through the great Chicago Sun-Times movie critic, Roger Ebert.

Perhaps not a historian in the strictest sense, Ebert is nonetheless a fascinating bookkeeper with a unique ability to time stamp his work creating a body of prose and analysis that becomes a thrilling and intellectual historical account of movies, theatrical venues, and his own pursuit to experience and be a part of movie and literati history. Unlike typical scholars, Ebert puts his own self into his writings with no apologies, a “no-no” that every college professor I have ever experienced insisted I deny or academically perish. At the time, and today, I chose the latter path, thrusting myself into my work with full gusto. And it was only through Roger Ebert’s writings that I have finally seen that my decision to put “me” into my work was the correct one.

To read the reviews of Roger Ebert is a sublime experience. He is a man who treats each movie review, article, and commentary he writes with the utmost seriousness and humour. Unlike most critics who write as if they are gods amongst men, Ebert is like the learned buddy you know and whose opinion you always listen to and respect even if you disagree. And to think: this guy was screen writer for Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the over-the-top, bosomy camp classic of all-time. What can’t this guy write?

There is and shall always be a place for the noble pursuit of objective fact recording, but the history I find most appealing is the one constructed with the passion, intelligence, and wit and teh onest and undeniable presense of an author. In Roger Ebert, I have uncovered for myself the greatest analytical critic with a heart I could ever imagine. It is for that reason, more than any other, that Mr. Ebert is one of my all-time heroes. His writings are the Mount Olympus of my literary aspirations and like the best writers I have ever read (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald), Mr. Ebert is someone I aspire to be but know deep down inside I can never equal. No matter, having had the opportunity over the last decade to live and learn through his expansive and wonderful body of work I find myself forever in his debt.

Quite simply, Roger Ebert is a genius and will forever prove a profound influence on everything I write.

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Regarding above Roger Ebert picture:

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