I probably shouldn't have upvoted you, but that really sums up my feeling. Ebert was another old man who I loved, and they seem to keep dying. Which makes sense. Maurice Sendak, Kurt Vonnegut, Paul Newman, my Grandpa... folks who populated my childhood and who I never really pictured leaving. Well, fuck.
This is such a shame to hear. He was one of the people who really got me into film (amongst many others I can presume). He'll be missed.
A friend shared an article Ebert wrote in 2011 about death that I absolutely love that I feel is incredibly relevant now. In the article he states “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.", which I feel is a beautiful attitude to take. The whole article is worth a read and can be found here:
He was active in tech circles long before that sort of thing was cool. He was a passionate advocate for Apple and the Mac during the dark days before The Return of Steve, for instance, and used to write a regular column in one of the big Mac magazines (can't remember which one, unfortunately). You couldn't read the columns without realizing that he wasn't a non-techie posing as one -- he really was a power user, a gigantic nerd who loved everything Mac at heart.
I was wondering about that too. He takes a leave of absence and dies two days later? Makes me wonder if there was some event (like a stroke) related to his cancer but not the cancer itself.
I'll just leave one of my favorite quotes from Ebert about a movie that is actually one of my all time favorite comedy.
"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." [1]
- Roger Ebert review of "Freddy Got Fingered"; April 20, 2001
Which is stealing/paraphrasing Winston Churchill "yes I may be drunk. But my Dear in the morning I'll be sober and you'll still be ugly" or something close to that.
At the risk of dissecting the frog, the wit is in the assumptive twist about The Brown Bunny.
He was right, by the way: he did indeed get thin (he stopped being able to eat after losing his jaw to a surgical mishap), and Vincent Gallo is indeed still the director of The Brown Bunny.
To be pedantic, he lost a lot of weight before he lost his ability to eat. After his initial cancer diagnosis (and treatment), he went on the Pritikin diet and lost almost 90 pounds between the diet and weight loss from treatment.
Not half bad, but drawing on a line of S.J. Perelman's about a movie that "... provided a snug return for its investors, and was retired to be cut into ukulele picks."
And if you like entertaining reviews, the "Cloudland Revisited" pieces from The Most of S.J. Perelman are well worth the price.
"I was reminded of Mad Dog Time (1996), another movie in which well-known actors engaged in laughable dialogue while shooting one another. Of that one, I wrote: " `Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time." Now comes Frogs for Snakes, the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of Mad Dog Time."
I always preferred his 0-1 star reviews to his 4 star reviews, only because he would skewer them with such masterful language. Ahh now what do I do when I want to laugh at a review about a woefully bad movie?
You can always buy the two books Ebert published that are nothing but collections of reviews he wrote for movies he gave 2 stars or less: I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie and its follow-up, Your Movie Sucks.
There's enough skewering between their covers to keep you occupied for quite some time :-D
I'll also never forget when Ebert lambasted that ridiculous "Benjamin Button" movie. At the time, I felt like he was the only one on earth that agreed with me. The film recieved nothing but praise, and I was sitting there wondering if I had seen the same film as everyone else. I was so delighted to read his review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...
What do you ask a snowman inhabited by your father? After all, Dad's been dead a year. What's it like on the other side? Is there a heaven? Big Bang or steady state? When will the NBA lockout end? Elvis--dead? What's it like standing out on the lawn in the cold all night? Ever meet any angels? Has anybody else ever come back as a snowman? Do you have to eat? If you do, then what? Any good reporter could talk to that snowman for five minutes and come back with some great quotes.
But Charlie, self-centered little movie child, is more concerned with how Jack Frost (his father's real name) can help him. His dad has been dead for a year and comes back as a snowman and all he can think of is using the snowman to defeat the school bully in a snowball fight. Also, the kid tries to keep Dad from melting. (What kind of a half-track miracle is it if a snowman can talk, but it can't keep from melting?) Does the snowman have any advice for his son? Here is a typical conversation: Jack Frost: "You da man!" Charlie: "No, YOU da man!" Jack: "No, I da SNOWMAN!"
Fitzgerald said "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Ebert seemed to have a knack for thinking all the thoughts simultaneously, and then getting their product onto a page:
Wow. The Fitzgerald quote is amazing. Thanks for sharing.
As a kid growing up in a poor, rural community, I wasn't exposed to much intellectual writing. The exception was the reprint in the local paper of Ebert's movie reviews, and of course seeing him on one of the two channels that came in on the antenna.
When so many around me thought that being dissatisfied with the intellectual equivalent of McDonald's was elitist, Ebert reminded me that it wasn't cynical to look down on thoughtless garbage; rather, it was hopeful to demand that movie studios realize that we weren't as dumb as they think we are.
There's nothing wrong with film criticism. Ebert's 4-star ratings are even a good heuristic for picking something to watch. All of his "great movies" are generally recognized as such. And he certainly knew a lot more details about film than probably anyone else.
The problem with Ebert's reviews is that they offer very little in the way of insight, analysis, or depth. Instead, they are generally straightforward expositions of the film crew, setting, characters, and plot. This means that you cannot read them before watching a film, unless you want to be spoiled, and afterwards, if you were paying any kind of attention, you've already grasped everything that he points out. He doesn't usually explain what he thought the central message of a film is, so it can be unclear if he got it or not. He isn't big on interpretation.
He wasn't an idiot, but he didn't do the hard intellectual work of coming up with something new to say about films. Even the most hyper-intelligent person would have a hard time coming up with "intellectual" things to say at the rate he churned through movies. I think he was writing something like one review per day by the end.
Ebert's reviews are to film criticism what Ebert's one-pot cooking is to a full kitchen. He could make something reasonable, and it would appeal to lots of people, but the structural and time constraints meant it would never have the sophistication of an in-depth treatment. Ask someone in film studies, ask someone in culinary school.
The positive side of a lack of depth is breadth, which means we have a massive number of star ratings from a single source, and as such his work is a reasonable encyclopedia of film. Much of what he details in his reviews isn't available in Wikipedia, or appropriate for it.
It's an unfortunate oversimplification to reduce Ebert to his Sun-Times reviews. They were well-written and erudite, but they weren't meant to be extended meditations on the art of cinema. His review-writing had customers, and he gave the customers what they needed and wanted. Ebert had other venues for deeper kinds of writing, and was prolific in them. Ebertfest, for instance, was well-known for frame-by-frame analyses of important movies. Or read how he arrived at and massaged his top 10 films of all time, or what he wrote about Ozu or Herzog.
But I'd pause before stipulating even that his review writing was broad. Even within the medium of mass-market reviews, Ebert was impactful. Think about how his star system worked, so that Donner's Superman shared a rating with Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and that somehow still made sense. Or the way he managed his brand, or syndicated his show with Siskel.
Yeah, I basically agree. His mainstream work is what he's known for, and it's probably why self-avowed intellectuals (academics in film studies or film theory) don't consider him an intellectual. For me it's that even with his online work, he's much more of an everyman than an ivory tower guy, which is why the label of "intellectual" doesn't quite fit. This isn't bad or good, this is just how I see it, and it says nothing about his own intelligence. Finally, I think it's quite possible for depth within a review format. I like the ones in Variety: they're deeper, yet they don't give it away. Then again, they don't have as much mass-market appeal.
If you think Ebert only wrote starred reviews and had TV shows, then you are very wrong, and you have missed out. That's what he is most known for, but his extensive writings and lectures on film go as deep as anyone else in the field.
"As deep as anyone else in the field" implies formal writing, which I've never seen by Ebert. If it exists, does it compare with what gets published in a film studies journal, or has it been published in one? Do you have a link or article name?
gnosis didn't say anything about film or new media. I'd be really pretty surprised if gnosis believed there weren't "intellectual" (read: thoughtful) things to say about film. That said, he didn't explain why it's sad that Ebert was considered an intellectual either, so who knows.
I'm sure there must have been a similar reaction when the works of Homer were first written down - I'm sure bards who relied on memory must have regarded writing as "anti-intellectual".
If Ebert had died before Siskel, your comment would probably not be questioned. Ebert has a reputation now that did not exist throughout nearly the entirety of his career. His reputation was resurrected with his public battle with cancer in 2006. Before then he was this guy:
His personality kept at arms length throughout the 80's and 90's.
However when he could only speak through his writings, people saw some sparks of brilliance and began paying him attention. The bravery he showed by appearing at the Sundance Festival after losing his jaw was noticed. And over the last six years he has been recognized as last great critic.
If you like the Fitzgerald quote, you'd probably also be interested in the idea that it essentially summarizes "Negative Capability"[0] which was originally developed by the poet John Keats.
Particularly relevant I feel in a world of comment thread polemics
If you're interested, the quote comes from The Crack-Up, which "tells the story of Fitzgerald's sudden descent at age thirty-nine from a life of success and glamor to one of emptiness and despair, and his determined recovery."[1]
Yes, Ebert was the only critic who could tell you how to improve as a film maker. His integrity was incorruptible. He knew things about film that none of the critics around today seem to know: a complete knowledge of films of the past, what it takes to make a film since he did one himself in the 60s, and how to make a film better. He will be terribly missed.
Agreed with the mention of Jonathan Rosenbaum, the best critic I've read yet (but then again I am not familiar with the works of the others you mention).
Mark Kermode from the BBC? Granted you mostly have to listen instead of read, as he's primarily a radio reviewer, but he's damned good. And obstinately opinionated, which makes for some fun review rants.
Check out his "Sex and the City 2: The Movie". Legendary among his fans.
This one is much better and on the mark. Fitzgerald's quote needs a corollary, which appeals to intelectual honesty. If reason definitively tells you x, but you want to believe y, then you might be tempted to abuse Fitzgerald's quote.
Exactly. My first thought about the Fitzgerald quote is "that's how fundamentalist nutcases are able to function".
The ability to hold mutually contradictory ideas at the same time and continue to function is something we all do - it's a fundamental part of the human psyche. There's nothing special about it. It's just that we generally do it by compartmentalising the ideas to different parts of our lives.
Dealing with multiple contradictory ideas at the same time and knowing and accepting how they contradict, is very different.
Despite what the internet would have you believe, Aristotle never said such a thing. That quote may be a product of the Fitzgerald quote being mangled and misattributed, or of someone thinking they could say what Aristotle said better than Aristotle did.
The closest we get to such a statement is from Nichomachean Ethics 1094b23-25:
> "It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible."
-- Aristotle Actual
Respectfully, no. You're research isn't up to snuff.
The quote you provided has zero primary sources. It doesn't even have secondary sources. All it has is a bunch of Google results, where its misattribution is repeated (as if that makes it therefore true). Have you ever noticed how you never see that quote with an actual reference?
In the Nichomachean Ethics, irregardless of translations, your quote is absent. That quote you've shared is made up, not the product of a translation. Consult the Ethics themselves. A translator does not take a 30+ word sentence, cut it by a third, alter the meaning of the statement, and then let it pass. That is a paraphrase--and the one you've quoted is not even a paraphrase of any translation of the Ethics itself.
Look at the content of the statement from the Ethics. It is not the same as what you've posted. That should give you a full stop right there.
Goodreads is wrong. Your acceptance of the attributed quote is an error. When you're looking for a 'fair amount of sources' regarding quotations attributed to a philosopher who wrote in another language in another time, it's best to stick with the consensus of those who study and translate that philosopher and the primary and secondary source material available. There are myriad Aristotle experts who specialize in his works and translate them. You will find that none of them attribute your quote to Aristotle.
Note how the Wikipedia page does not include the quote you posted. Note how the Ethics does not contain the quote you posted--not in any translation. Why? Because Aristotle never said it, and the quote you've picked up from the internet is not saying the same thing.
I really wasn't trying to be rude. The rational thing to do here is to update your beliefs based on evidence. Your quote is not a bad quote. It's just not Aristotle's. The translations, though they may differ in some wording, carry the same meaning (which the internet-Aristotle-quote does not):
[paraphrase mine]
> An educated mind is noted by its ability to be satisfied by the precision allowed by a given subject, while not demanding exactitude where only approximation can be attained.
Of course, there's the second part of the quote (in some translations), where Aristotle expounds (again, paraphrase mine):
> The educated person would not ask a rhetorician for scientific proof of his statements; neither would she ask a mathematician to reason in probabilities alone.
---
I was trying to be helpful, not argumentative. Since you're still wanting to stand your ground that your quote is actually from Aristotle, I have to point out that your sources are unreliable to reference in proving your point. Go to the primary sources, not other websites that are re-quoting the same quote you did. That's as kindly as I can put it without just dismissing this as you refusing to update your beliefs based on sufficient evidence.
the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function
This is the same guy who said "video games cannot be art, and I will not consider debate about it". The second part in particular was what I found disturbing.
While holding that unpopular view may be admirable, I agree with your parent that closing one's mind to the opposing view on any topic is not admirable. Perhaps he meant that he had already considered the debate and found all the arguments wanting.
Ebert's criticisms of videogames sound exactly like the layperson's criticisms of cubism: doesn't look like what I think a picture should look like; it doesn't appeal to me; it doesn't make rational sense to me. One clear example is when he equates Braid's 'reversing time' mechanism to 'taking back a move in chess'. It's not - it's a game mechanic used in the game to progress, not to have a do-over. He is operating from some very wrong assumptions.
I don't mean to restart the debate here, I'm just pointing out that his arguments are insulated and prejudiced, and hence my main point: that by denying any debate on the topic (it's the first sentence in your link - relented only by sheer volume), he refuses to learn about the topic. Again, I think this is in stark contrast to the quote I was initially responding to. I think it is profoundly anti-intellectual to behave in this manner.
I don't care whether or not he likes games, or whether he thinks they're shit art or not. Each to their own. But for an influential person in a related field to make such a contentious, declarative statement, and then refuse to entertain debate... that's anti-intellectualism, in my opinion. Just like the layperson who doesn't get cubism and calls it inferior as a result.
He did change opinion over time and concede that they could be 'non-traditional art', which suggests that yes indeed, engaging in debate (even if it has to be forced upon you) can actually change your views; help you understand why people say what they say.
PS: the snarky person in me had to laugh at Ebert's characterisation of games as 'not art' because the audience's actions can change the outcome or plot. Clearly he never played Mass Effect :D
Shit, people's perceptions of art are insulted and prejudiced? Who knew?
Isn't the fact that he supposedly said he doesn't consider them art and doesn't want to debate it an indication that he views it as just a personal opinion, and not something he wants to force on other people? He has his reasons, no doubt, but not everybody in the world needs to embrace everything in it. If he was happy with the art that he knew, good for him.
If he was happy with the art that he knew, good for him.
I didn't say otherwise on what made him happy. But when you're an influential public figure making public statements, the rules are a little different for you. If a politician or a leading business figure said "I think latinos are lazy and worthless. I'm not going to debate that, it's just a personal opinion", would you still say that no-one would have a right to ask them to justify the statement or hold them to account?
If a politician or a leading business figure said "I think latinos are lazy and worthless. I'm not going to debate that, it's just a personal opinion", would you still say that no-one would have a right to ask them to justify the statement or hold them to account?
No, because I hold the rights of races of people not to be discriminated or slandered against far, far more important than the right of video games to be considered art. Calling a race of people lazy promotes racism and actually affects people's lives. Whether video games are art is mostly an academic question. That's the difference.
I don't think journalists should have to answer questions on any topic that comes up. He clearly didn't know much about video games and he was happy with the art that he knew. People who think video games are art have a right to reply, but not a right to expect him to debate it with them.
Someone needs to find 100% cure against this deadly disease. So much money is spent on cancer research every year and what are the results..almost zero.
I won't challenge you for their names, but if so many people are working on the issue, why don't we see any progress?
Sure we have 30 ways to cure cancer in rats, but the best we can do for humans is either to poison them with chemicals (some of them radioactive, no less) or laser beams that are only slightly less likely to kill normal cells than cancer cells.
Meanwhile we throw a fortune at the problem and throw a fortune at ever more expensive treatments -- for what?
The only recent success I know of is against prostate cancer but that was only because some ex-con got rich and started to found actual, aggressive, of the beaten path research - and that is still not a cure and only against one form of cancer.
So since you know these people, what do they need to get some useful research out there? Money and fame upon success is a given (Jonas Salk comes to mind) but what stops them?
There have been huge advances in, for one, breast cancer treatment over the last 15-20 years.
When you say "for what?" I can only point to the aggressive variant of BC my wife was diagnosed with 3 years ago. A death sentence literally a few years ago, she is now recovered and has good prospects for a long and productive life.
This is only possible because of the "fortune" of research thrown at her particular form of cancer in recent years; but it goes deeper than that. Because of the expense of the (relatively new) treatment and limited history of efficacy/results, her specialist had to personally argue the case for her to receive the treatment with our local health authority (I am in the UK btw so perhaps this is different to the US).
As more women (hopefully) successfully recover with the use of this treatment, resistance to spend on research will hopefully fade in the face of such positive results.
From the brightest cancer researchers in the world down to the people working in your local chemotherapy unit, progress is being made at a better rate than ever before. It's just very hard work, and I don't think money and fame really come into it - there are easier ways to achieve that:)
No. Just, no. The progress is freaking immense. Childhood leukemia used to be a death sentence - now? 95% survival. That's just one. My stepdad just got cured of prostate cancer, and no, not with weird-ass stuff either. Incremental progress. I've got a cousin who's surviving breast cancer.
Cancer is way, way weirder than anybody thought. It's not a single-bullet thing. Cancer actually evolves right inside you, for one thing. They can actually chart the genome of different parts of the tumor and trace the cell lineages. So any one drug has different effectiveness against different parts of the cancer.
So there's been slow, steady progress over the last couple of decades, and survival rates are way better than they used to be - and just getting better. But "treating cancer" is kind of like "treating viruses" - you need a whole array of techniques. And we're building that array. Nothing's stopping anybody.
I know a lot of people (including my grandmother) that extended their lifespan significantly thanks to cancer research.
It's still far from perfect - my grandmother ultimately died from cancer-related complications, but she got a 10-year extension on life, I'd say it has advanced.
As it turns out, fighting cancer is hard. Really, really fucking hard. "We have met the enemy and he is us." Or rather our own cells, mutated through a million different gene changes with a million different causes. Progress is being made every day; it only seems like nothing compared to the massive multidimensional scope of the problem.
I am not quite sure that makes sense - polio is was pretty complex too and yet there weren't that many years between the early attemps by Maurice Brodie (36) and Jonas Salks success (52).
Polio for all it's complexity has one root cause, a viral infection. The poliovirus was first isolated in 1909, by which time the concept of vaccination was relatively well understood. It still took decades to get a working safe vaccine, after root cause, and generalized course of action were known.
Cancer as a whole has none of those characteristics.
Results are not almost zero. Cancers that were once a death sentence before are now an inconvenience. Even though Roger Ebert ultimately died because of cancer, his life was extended at least a decade entirely because of treatments. This is progress.
The term "cancer survivor" didn't even exist prior to modern research.
I just read "The Emperor of All Maladies", an absolutely great book about cancer, the history of cancer discovery and history of cancer treatment. It goes into a lot of detail about exactly what progress is being made, why it is so hard, and what is on the horizon.
After reading it, I came away with the impression that the scientific fight against cancer is 50-60 years, but only the last 20 years has been very fruitful. Prior to that the treatments that worked were found largely through trial and error.
Seriously -- My mother died when I was 2, 24 years ago. The type of cancer she had took her quickly -- however, today, the available treatments would have likely given her a relatively normal life.
Back then there was nothing. No one knew really what to do with her particular type. It was all a gamble with a lot of "Go to Mexico to try some experimental treatments"
Cancer is about two hundred diseases, at least. It's a case of undesirable evolution: cells evolve toward radical individual fitness at the expense of the organism. The body has ways of protecting against that, but the most "fit" cancer cells can sometimes overcome those. It's an ongoing arms race. This selection phenomenon (clonal evolution) similar to anti-biotic resistance is what makes it so hard to treat.
This is one reason why I have little patience for creationists. One of the most important problems (curing cancer) is an issue directly involving evolution (at the cellular level).
The cancer research is returning a lot of yield, but this is just a very hard problem. The body has about 10 trillion cells. Some are good, some are bad. The bad ones become increasingly able to survive treatments due to clonal evolution. The good ones die as well, because these are systemic treatments (highly powerful drugs) that interfere with cell reproduction. You have to kill all the bad ones, or the cancer will probably return. If you kill too many good ones, the patient dies a horrible death that's much worse than a regular cancer death. It's not easy to do.
It's just a fucking hard problem. We should be putting 10-20 times as much money into it. How many things are more important than fighting cancer? Not these fucking social media startups.
Just two days ago, he announced he was taking a "leave of presence."
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."
He writes quite a bit about his immediate business plans. It would suggest his death was actually quite unexpected, even though we all knew he was ill.
R.I.P Mr.Ebert - I've spent many an idle hour reading his works, many of which, quite frankly, were more entertaining than the movies themselves and opened a whole world of cinema to me.
Ebert made his name in movie criticism but he was one of my favorite writers, period. I've read him since I was in junior high...it sounds silly now, but the way he would give four stars to what seemed like just a shallow blockbuster action movie but then justify it for doing shallow action wonderfully...that taught me a lot about how to judge things on what they purport to do, rather than just against what you, the writer, prefers.
As good as his four-star reviews were, I still loved reading his 0 to 1 star reviews. He was at great at ripping movies as he was as exalting them.
> As good as his four-star reviews were, I still loved reading his 0 to 1 star reviews. He was at great at ripping movies as he was as exalting them.
It's typically harder to write a good positive review than a good negative one. It's often hard to come up with praise and word it so that it doesn't sound like a bunch of thinly-veiled cliches strung together. This was actually Ebert's greatest strength, in my opinion.
>I've read him since I was in junior high...it sounds silly now, but the way he would give four stars to what seemed like just a shallow blockbuster action movie but then justify it for doing shallow action wonderfully...that taught me a lot about how to judge things on what they purport to do, rather than just against what you, the writer, prefers.
Exactly.
As a kid watching one of his reviews was the first time I'd seen a reviewer, or anyone on TV say something like that. Even today, he remains the only example that readily comes to mind.
I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions. An action film was good so long as it had effective action; films purporting to be more cerebral in nature had rather more to answer for. He resisted the ivory tower most other writers with his level of film knowledge would climb.
Your final paragraph was Ebert's great value for me: there are no shortage of critics who can tell me interesting things about the canon of great films; there are almost none amongst them who can also meet less elevated fare on its own ground.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, Ebert wasn't trying to impress anyone. He told the truth as he saw it. Keep doing that while being a good writer, and people will recognize you for it.
> I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions.
A great example of this was his review of The Human Centipede. He said that the film perfectly accomplished its ambitions, but those ambitions were so dark, so far outside the norm that his rating system was simply incapable of properly rating the film. In his own words[1]:
> I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
>I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions
Yet he consistently dismissed films that I would describe as "low brow humour" as being terrible films. He said Ace Ventura was one of the worst films he had seen for example, and his reasoning appeared to be "the character is annoying, and the jokes are crude".
I can think of no better way to learn about the art and history of movies than to read through Ebert's Great Film articles. He did such a great job of putting films in context. I loved how his "Great Films" articles always had a good mix of films from the first movies to recent years.
Very sad to hear. I read his reviews, not really to know how a movie was received and whether or not it is worth watching (though you can do that too), but to get a nice summary eloquently discussing the motifs, symbolism, and story line of a movie after actually having watched one. I don't know where I'll get that now.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadA friend shared an article Ebert wrote in 2011 about death that I absolutely love that I feel is incredibly relevant now. In the article he states “I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.", which I feel is a beautiful attitude to take. The whole article is worth a read and can be found here:
http://www.salon.com/2011/09/15/roger_ebert/
And he just wrote about having a leave of presence! I will miss him immensely.
Great quote from Rick Hogan: when he was writing a review about a movie he loved, "He was writing a love letter to a friend".
I'll just leave one of my favorite quotes from Ebert about a movie that is actually one of my all time favorite comedy.
"This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels." [1]
- Roger Ebert review of "Freddy Got Fingered"; April 20, 2001
[1] http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...
He was right, by the way: he did indeed get thin (he stopped being able to eat after losing his jaw to a surgical mishap), and Vincent Gallo is indeed still the director of The Brown Bunny.
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2004-08-29/online-extra-...
"Mad Dog Time should be cut up to provide free ukelele picks for the poor."
And if you like entertaining reviews, the "Cloudland Revisited" pieces from The Most of S.J. Perelman are well worth the price.
"'Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time."
"I was reminded of Mad Dog Time (1996), another movie in which well-known actors engaged in laughable dialogue while shooting one another. Of that one, I wrote: " `Mad Dog Time' is the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of a blank screen viewed for the same length of time." Now comes Frogs for Snakes, the first movie I have seen that does not improve on the sight of Mad Dog Time."
There's enough skewering between their covers to keep you occupied for quite some time :-D
I'll also never forget when Ebert lambasted that ridiculous "Benjamin Button" movie. At the time, I felt like he was the only one on earth that agreed with me. The film recieved nothing but praise, and I was sitting there wondering if I had seen the same film as everyone else. I was so delighted to read his review: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...
Synecdoche, New York http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20... Paris, Texas http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19...
(I just notice the similar form of those film titles. Curious!)
But Charlie, self-centered little movie child, is more concerned with how Jack Frost (his father's real name) can help him. His dad has been dead for a year and comes back as a snowman and all he can think of is using the snowman to defeat the school bully in a snowball fight. Also, the kid tries to keep Dad from melting. (What kind of a half-track miracle is it if a snowman can talk, but it can't keep from melting?) Does the snowman have any advice for his son? Here is a typical conversation: Jack Frost: "You da man!" Charlie: "No, YOU da man!" Jack: "No, I da SNOWMAN!"
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind....
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/03/how_i_am_a_roman_cat...
One of the truly great Internet writers. My favorite:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/the_pot_and_how_to_u...
(It's not what you think!)
The blog is getting crushed right now but most of this content is in Google's cache.
As a kid growing up in a poor, rural community, I wasn't exposed to much intellectual writing. The exception was the reprint in the local paper of Ebert's movie reviews, and of course seeing him on one of the two channels that came in on the antenna.
When so many around me thought that being dissatisfied with the intellectual equivalent of McDonald's was elitist, Ebert reminded me that it wasn't cynical to look down on thoughtless garbage; rather, it was hopeful to demand that movie studios realize that we weren't as dumb as they think we are.
The problem with Ebert's reviews is that they offer very little in the way of insight, analysis, or depth. Instead, they are generally straightforward expositions of the film crew, setting, characters, and plot. This means that you cannot read them before watching a film, unless you want to be spoiled, and afterwards, if you were paying any kind of attention, you've already grasped everything that he points out. He doesn't usually explain what he thought the central message of a film is, so it can be unclear if he got it or not. He isn't big on interpretation.
He wasn't an idiot, but he didn't do the hard intellectual work of coming up with something new to say about films. Even the most hyper-intelligent person would have a hard time coming up with "intellectual" things to say at the rate he churned through movies. I think he was writing something like one review per day by the end.
Ebert's reviews are to film criticism what Ebert's one-pot cooking is to a full kitchen. He could make something reasonable, and it would appeal to lots of people, but the structural and time constraints meant it would never have the sophistication of an in-depth treatment. Ask someone in film studies, ask someone in culinary school.
The positive side of a lack of depth is breadth, which means we have a massive number of star ratings from a single source, and as such his work is a reasonable encyclopedia of film. Much of what he details in his reviews isn't available in Wikipedia, or appropriate for it.
But I'd pause before stipulating even that his review writing was broad. Even within the medium of mass-market reviews, Ebert was impactful. Think about how his star system worked, so that Donner's Superman shared a rating with Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God, and that somehow still made sense. Or the way he managed his brand, or syndicated his show with Siskel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Film_studies_journals
Don't get me wrong. Reading is important, the classics are important. But the idea that you have to focus in "old stuff" to be intellectual is absurd.
http://www.pajiba.com/videos/watch-roger-ebert-was-a-total-d...
His personality kept at arms length throughout the 80's and 90's.
However when he could only speak through his writings, people saw some sparks of brilliance and began paying him attention. The bravery he showed by appearing at the Sundance Festival after losing his jaw was noticed. And over the last six years he has been recognized as last great critic.
Particularly relevant I feel in a world of comment thread polemics
0. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_capability
[1]: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16893.The_Crack_Up
Some of my favorites are Glenn Kenny, David Bordwell, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Kent Jones, and others I'm missing.
Check out his "Sex and the City 2: The Movie". Legendary among his fans.
1. http://web.archive.org/web/20130130054900/http://blogs.sunti...
2. http://web.archive.org/web/20130324015956/http://blogs.sunti...
3. http://web.archive.org/web/20130117072812/http://blogs.sunti...
"I cannot believe in God. I refuse to call myself a atheist however, because that indicates too great a certainty about the unknowable."
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2013/03/how_i_am_a_roman_cat...
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
The ability to hold mutually contradictory ideas at the same time and continue to function is something we all do - it's a fundamental part of the human psyche. There's nothing special about it. It's just that we generally do it by compartmentalising the ideas to different parts of our lives.
Dealing with multiple contradictory ideas at the same time and knowing and accepting how they contradict, is very different.
The closest we get to such a statement is from Nichomachean Ethics 1094b23-25:
> "It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible." -- Aristotle Actual
It's attributed to Metaphysics (http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2479557), Nichomachean Ethics -- as you said (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/aristotleworks/a/121610-A...), and Wikiquote (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle). cmd+f (or ctrl) for 'educated' to find it in the last two links for it also appears slightly different from your version.
The quote you provided has zero primary sources. It doesn't even have secondary sources. All it has is a bunch of Google results, where its misattribution is repeated (as if that makes it therefore true). Have you ever noticed how you never see that quote with an actual reference?
In the Nichomachean Ethics, irregardless of translations, your quote is absent. That quote you've shared is made up, not the product of a translation. Consult the Ethics themselves. A translator does not take a 30+ word sentence, cut it by a third, alter the meaning of the statement, and then let it pass. That is a paraphrase--and the one you've quoted is not even a paraphrase of any translation of the Ethics itself.
Look at the content of the statement from the Ethics. It is not the same as what you've posted. That should give you a full stop right there.
Goodreads is wrong. Your acceptance of the attributed quote is an error. When you're looking for a 'fair amount of sources' regarding quotations attributed to a philosopher who wrote in another language in another time, it's best to stick with the consensus of those who study and translate that philosopher and the primary and secondary source material available. There are myriad Aristotle experts who specialize in his works and translate them. You will find that none of them attribute your quote to Aristotle.
Note how the Wikipedia page does not include the quote you posted. Note how the Ethics does not contain the quote you posted--not in any translation. Why? Because Aristotle never said it, and the quote you've picked up from the internet is not saying the same thing.
I really wasn't trying to be rude. The rational thing to do here is to update your beliefs based on evidence. Your quote is not a bad quote. It's just not Aristotle's. The translations, though they may differ in some wording, carry the same meaning (which the internet-Aristotle-quote does not):
[paraphrase mine] > An educated mind is noted by its ability to be satisfied by the precision allowed by a given subject, while not demanding exactitude where only approximation can be attained.
Of course, there's the second part of the quote (in some translations), where Aristotle expounds (again, paraphrase mine):
> The educated person would not ask a rhetorician for scientific proof of his statements; neither would she ask a mathematician to reason in probabilities alone.
--- I was trying to be helpful, not argumentative. Since you're still wanting to stand your ground that your quote is actually from Aristotle, I have to point out that your sources are unreliable to reference in proving your point. Go to the primary sources, not other websites that are re-quoting the same quote you did. That's as kindly as I can put it without just dismissing this as you refusing to update your beliefs based on sufficient evidence.
This is the same guy who said "video games cannot be art, and I will not consider debate about it". The second part in particular was what I found disturbing.
I don't think games had any reason to feel threatened by him.
He also clarifies that he thinks video games can in principle be art, but that no video game yet made could hold its own among the great works of art.
I don't mean to restart the debate here, I'm just pointing out that his arguments are insulated and prejudiced, and hence my main point: that by denying any debate on the topic (it's the first sentence in your link - relented only by sheer volume), he refuses to learn about the topic. Again, I think this is in stark contrast to the quote I was initially responding to. I think it is profoundly anti-intellectual to behave in this manner.
I don't care whether or not he likes games, or whether he thinks they're shit art or not. Each to their own. But for an influential person in a related field to make such a contentious, declarative statement, and then refuse to entertain debate... that's anti-intellectualism, in my opinion. Just like the layperson who doesn't get cubism and calls it inferior as a result.
He did change opinion over time and concede that they could be 'non-traditional art', which suggests that yes indeed, engaging in debate (even if it has to be forced upon you) can actually change your views; help you understand why people say what they say.
PS: the snarky person in me had to laugh at Ebert's characterisation of games as 'not art' because the audience's actions can change the outcome or plot. Clearly he never played Mass Effect :D
Isn't the fact that he supposedly said he doesn't consider them art and doesn't want to debate it an indication that he views it as just a personal opinion, and not something he wants to force on other people? He has his reasons, no doubt, but not everybody in the world needs to embrace everything in it. If he was happy with the art that he knew, good for him.
I didn't say otherwise on what made him happy. But when you're an influential public figure making public statements, the rules are a little different for you. If a politician or a leading business figure said "I think latinos are lazy and worthless. I'm not going to debate that, it's just a personal opinion", would you still say that no-one would have a right to ask them to justify the statement or hold them to account?
No, because I hold the rights of races of people not to be discriminated or slandered against far, far more important than the right of video games to be considered art. Calling a race of people lazy promotes racism and actually affects people's lives. Whether video games are art is mostly an academic question. That's the difference.
I don't think journalists should have to answer questions on any topic that comes up. He clearly didn't know much about video games and he was happy with the art that he knew. People who think video games are art have a right to reply, but not a right to expect him to debate it with them.
Sure we have 30 ways to cure cancer in rats, but the best we can do for humans is either to poison them with chemicals (some of them radioactive, no less) or laser beams that are only slightly less likely to kill normal cells than cancer cells.
Meanwhile we throw a fortune at the problem and throw a fortune at ever more expensive treatments -- for what?
The only recent success I know of is against prostate cancer but that was only because some ex-con got rich and started to found actual, aggressive, of the beaten path research - and that is still not a cure and only against one form of cancer.
So since you know these people, what do they need to get some useful research out there? Money and fame upon success is a given (Jonas Salk comes to mind) but what stops them?
When you say "for what?" I can only point to the aggressive variant of BC my wife was diagnosed with 3 years ago. A death sentence literally a few years ago, she is now recovered and has good prospects for a long and productive life.
This is only possible because of the "fortune" of research thrown at her particular form of cancer in recent years; but it goes deeper than that. Because of the expense of the (relatively new) treatment and limited history of efficacy/results, her specialist had to personally argue the case for her to receive the treatment with our local health authority (I am in the UK btw so perhaps this is different to the US).
As more women (hopefully) successfully recover with the use of this treatment, resistance to spend on research will hopefully fade in the face of such positive results.
From the brightest cancer researchers in the world down to the people working in your local chemotherapy unit, progress is being made at a better rate than ever before. It's just very hard work, and I don't think money and fame really come into it - there are easier ways to achieve that:)
Cancer is way, way weirder than anybody thought. It's not a single-bullet thing. Cancer actually evolves right inside you, for one thing. They can actually chart the genome of different parts of the tumor and trace the cell lineages. So any one drug has different effectiveness against different parts of the cancer.
So there's been slow, steady progress over the last couple of decades, and survival rates are way better than they used to be - and just getting better. But "treating cancer" is kind of like "treating viruses" - you need a whole array of techniques. And we're building that array. Nothing's stopping anybody.
It's still far from perfect - my grandmother ultimately died from cancer-related complications, but she got a 10-year extension on life, I'd say it has advanced.
Cancer as a whole has none of those characteristics.
The term "cancer survivor" didn't even exist prior to modern research.
After reading it, I came away with the impression that the scientific fight against cancer is 50-60 years, but only the last 20 years has been very fruitful. Prior to that the treatments that worked were found largely through trial and error.
Back then there was nothing. No one knew really what to do with her particular type. It was all a gamble with a lot of "Go to Mexico to try some experimental treatments"
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1162
Now - 5 year+ survival rates are well above 80%.
Long, long, way from zero.
This is one reason why I have little patience for creationists. One of the most important problems (curing cancer) is an issue directly involving evolution (at the cellular level).
The cancer research is returning a lot of yield, but this is just a very hard problem. The body has about 10 trillion cells. Some are good, some are bad. The bad ones become increasingly able to survive treatments due to clonal evolution. The good ones die as well, because these are systemic treatments (highly powerful drugs) that interfere with cell reproduction. You have to kill all the bad ones, or the cancer will probably return. If you kill too many good ones, the patient dies a horrible death that's much worse than a regular cancer death. It's not easy to do.
It's just a fucking hard problem. We should be putting 10-20 times as much money into it. How many things are more important than fighting cancer? Not these fucking social media startups.
As good as his four-star reviews were, I still loved reading his 0 to 1 star reviews. He was at great at ripping movies as he was as exalting them.
It's typically harder to write a good positive review than a good negative one. It's often hard to come up with praise and word it so that it doesn't sound like a bunch of thinly-veiled cliches strung together. This was actually Ebert's greatest strength, in my opinion.
Exactly.
As a kid watching one of his reviews was the first time I'd seen a reviewer, or anyone on TV say something like that. Even today, he remains the only example that readily comes to mind.
I think what set Ebert apart is that he consistently judged films in the context of their ambitions. An action film was good so long as it had effective action; films purporting to be more cerebral in nature had rather more to answer for. He resisted the ivory tower most other writers with his level of film knowledge would climb.
A great example of this was his review of The Human Centipede. He said that the film perfectly accomplished its ambitions, but those ambitions were so dark, so far outside the norm that his rating system was simply incapable of properly rating the film. In his own words[1]:
> I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
[1]http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...
"Ebert judged films by their ambitions, eschewing the ivory tower: action films needed but good action while cerebral ones had a higher bar."
(Minus the quotation marks, that's 139 characters.)
Yet he consistently dismissed films that I would describe as "low brow humour" as being terrible films. He said Ace Ventura was one of the worst films he had seen for example, and his reasoning appeared to be "the character is annoying, and the jokes are crude".
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/roger-ebert-dies-film-... “I am, beneath everything else, a fan. I was fixed in this mode as a young boy and am awed by people who take the risks of performance.”
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20...
http://rogerebert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=REVIEWS...
Two big thumbs down :-(. RIP Ebert.