100 (or More) Great Quotes by Roger Ebert: An Interactive List

[Rowland]

Or he didn't like the movie.

I was trying to suggest as much without outright stating it, but this will do as well.

[MadMan]

20. "My guess is that African Americans will be offended by the movie, and whites will be embarrassed. The movie will bring us all together in paralyzing boredom." (BAPS)

[baby doll]

Or he didn't like the movie.

Obviously. But more than that, his review betrays certain ideological biases; the presence of a film like Taste of Cherry at Cannes gets in the way of business as usual because it's too uncommercial to appeal to a wide audience.

From his review of Kiarostami's Ten:

The fatal flaw in his approach is that no ordinary moviegoer, whether Iranian or American, can be expected to relate to his films. They exist for film festivals, film critics and film classes.

From a festival report from 2003:

In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point.

[Sxottlan]

Star Trek 4: "Because humpback whales are extinct in the 23rd century, they must journey back through time to the 20th century, obtain some humpback whales, and return with them to the future - thus saving Earth. After they thought up this notion, I hope the writers lit up cigars."

[Yum-Yum]

22. "Look at those freckles. I can never get enough of freckles." (Transporter 3)

[Spinal]

23. "In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point."

[Boner M]

23. "In the glory days of Cannes, style was Fellini’s gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing. Or audacious experiments by Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee and the Coen brothers. Or the freshness of the New Wave. Or the audacity of Fassbinder and the vision of Kurosawa.

Then along came Angelopoulos from Greece and Kiarostami from Iran, with their fashionably dead films in which shots last forever, and grim middle-aged men with mustaches sit and look and think and smoke and think and look and sit and smoke and shout and drive around and smoke until finally there is a closing shot that lasts forever and has no point."

Yeah, this is kinda why I stopped reading him.

[ledfloyd]

Too much negativity in this thread.

24. "Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I saw "La Dolce Vita'' in 1960, I was an adolescent for whom "the sweet life'' represented everything I dreamed of: sin, exotic European glamour, the weary romance of the cynical newspaperman. When I saw it again, around 1970, I was living in a version of Marcello's world; Chicago's North Avenue was not the Via Veneto, but at 3 a.m. the denizens were just as colorful, and I was about Marcello's age.

When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was 10 years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as a role model but as a victim, condemned to an endless search for happiness that could never be found, not that way. By 1991, when I analyzed the film a frame at a time at the University of Colorado, Marcello seemed younger still, and while I had once admired and then criticized him, now I pitied and loved him. And when I saw the movie right after Mastroianni died, I thought that Fellini and Marcello had taken a moment of discovery and made it immortal. There may be no such thing as the sweet life. But it is necessary to find that out for yourself."

[Boner M]

25. "Now here is the essential part. Bresson suggests that we are all Balthazars. Despite our dreams, hopes and best plans, the world will eventually do with us whatever it does. Because we can think and reason, we believe we can figure a way out, find a solution, get the answer. But intelligence gives us the ability to comprehend our fate without the power to control it. Still, Bresson does not leave us empty-handed. He offers us the suggestion of empathy. If we will extend ourselves to sympathize with how others feel, we can find the consolation of sharing human experience, instead of the loneliness of enduring it alone." (Au Hasard Balthazar)

[Grouchy]

Yeah, this is kinda why I stopped reading him.

I'm on the fence with this one.

On the one hand, the main reason Ebert's reviews angered me was his conformism. His notion of what a film should be and what constitutes a "film for the critics" (which is something that exists, obviously, and sucks) was very off at times. Therefore, when Almodóvar, Lynch and Gilliam started making films, Ebert gave them all bad reviews against the critical consensus. However, once that consensus became undisputed praise from critics and audiences, he started loving them. Same with Kiarostami, actually - he gave Certified Copy a glowing review.

But, on the other hand, Taste of Cherry is an unwatchable piece of shit, practically an endurance test. I agree with every word of his negative review.

[Boner M]

I don't think it's conformism, just populism verging on pandering. As I said in the RIP thread, he was a gateway to cinephilia, but he also treasured gateways as such: and I think what he saw in the exaltation of Kiarostami over more accessible Iranian filmmakers was an increasing divide between mainstream and niche tastes.

He even recanted his statements on Ceylan's Distant (the film he's indirectly referring to in quote #23) when it was released in the US, admitting that he was fickle in his dismissal, seeing 4-5 films per day in Cannes.

[Spinal]

To me, that quote speaks to Ebert's value as a film critic. He encouraged his readers to branch out and push themselves and try new things. But that quote also speaks to his willingness to remind filmmakers the dangers of losing touch with your audience. Was he always right? No. But he sure as hell was right about Taste of Cherry.

[Spinal]

26. "Make no mistake: The Cannes version was a bad film, but now Gallo's editing has set free the good film inside. The Brown Bunny is still not a complete success -- it is odd and off-putting when it doesn't want to be -- but as a study of loneliness and need, it evokes a tender sadness. I will always be grateful I saw the movie at Cannes; you can't understand where Gallo has arrived unless you know where he started."

[Boner M]

To me, that quote speaks to Ebert's value as a film critic. He encouraged his readers to branch out and push themselves and try new things.

The implication that Angelopolous doesn't feature "gracefully moving camera and shots that seemed to sing" (at least the films of his I've seen), or that Kiarostami isn't audacious... blech. The pining for a lost 'golden age' is once again just pining for being younger.

[Spinal]

Absolutely true. The Great Movies list is a starting point for many people to explore and discover.

[Boner M]

I'm talking about that particular quote. Thank god Ebert's here to lead us to the Coens and Tarantino!

[Boner M]

But anyway, I don't want to derail this thread into negativity. On that note..

26. "When you're angry with the world and yourself to the same degree, you're running in place. It takes a great deal of energy. It can be exhausting. You lash out at people. You're hard on yourself. It all takes place in your head. After a time people give up on you. They think you don't give a damn and don't care about yourself. If they only knew." (Greenberg)

[ledfloyd]

25. "Now here is the essential part. Bresson suggests that we are all Balthazars. Despite our dreams, hopes and best plans, the world will eventually do with us whatever it does. Because we can think and reason, we believe we can figure a way out, find a solution, get the answer. But intelligence gives us the ability to comprehend our fate without the power to control it. Still, Bresson does not leave us empty-handed. He offers us the suggestion of empathy. If we will extend ourselves to sympathize with how others feel, we can find the consolation of sharing human experience, instead of the loneliness of enduring it alone." (Au Hasard Balthazar)

Stuff like this is what I value Ebert for. He really understood what it meant to be human and valued that quality above all others in film.

Same with Kiarostami, actually - he gave Certified Copy a glowing review.

Go back and reread his Certified Copy review. He gave it ***1/2, but it reads much more like a ** review.

[Spinal]

I'm talking about that particular quote. Thank god Ebert's here to lead us to the Coens and Tarantino!

If Fassbinder and Kurosawa seem too mainstream for you now, I guess you know who to thank.

[Spinal]

27. "Why is it so extreme? Because it is a film made in rage, and rage cannot be modulated." (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover)

[Spinal]

28. "I sometimes find myself the advocate of what might be called a generic theory of film criticism. That's to say I think movies should be judged, in part, in terms of the expectations we have for them. A handful of movies rise above their genres: Bonnie and Clyde is no gangster film, for example, and Stagecoach is more than a Western. But most of the time, when we go to the movies, we go seeking more modest rewards: A decent spy picture, for example, or a passable musical. If you can accept this system of judgment, then The Devil in Miss Jones is maybe a three-star dirty movie."

[ledfloyd]

29. "The film's portrait of everyday life, inspired by Malick's memories of his hometown of Waco, Texas, is bounded by two immensities, one of space and time, and the other of spirituality. "The Tree of Life" has awe-inspiring visuals suggesting the birth and expansion of the universe, the appearance of life on a microscopic level and the evolution of species. This process leads to the present moment, and to all of us. We were created in the Big Bang and over untold millions of years, molecules formed themselves into, well, you and me.

And what comes after? In whispered words near the beginning, "nature" and "grace" are heard. We have seen nature as it gives and takes away; one of the family's boys dies. We also see how it works with time, as Jack O'Brien (Hunter McCracken) grows into a middle-aged man (Sean Penn). And what then? The film's coda provides a vision of an afterlife, a desolate landscape on which quiet people solemnly recognize and greet one another, and all is understood in the fullness of time."

[Spinal]

30. Now, Gene, that's totally unfair because you realize that these reviews are relative. Benji the Hunted is not one-third the film, one-tenth the film that the Kubrick film is [Full Metal Jacket], but you know that the same thing happens ... that you review films within context. So, it's not fair for you to compare those two reviews. And you know it and you should be ashamed of yourself."

I saw this episode when I was a kid and this heated exchange always stuck with me.

[Spinal]

31. "Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. 'Wouldn't you say,' she asked, 'that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?' No, I said, I wouldn't say that. 'But what about Basketball Diaries?' she asked. 'Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?' The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. 'Events like this,' I said, 'if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory.'

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of 'explaining' them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy." (Elephant}

[Dead & Messed Up]

32. "But, even so, you may be asking, how can I defend this depraved trash? I do not defend it. I praise it. And it is not depraved, although some reviews have seen it that way. It is about depravity.

If you can see beyond the immediate impact of Romero's imagery, if you can experience the film as being more than just its violent extremes, a most unsettling thought may occur to you: The zombies in "Dawn of the Dead" are not the ones who are depraved. They are only acting according to their natures, and, gore dripping from their jaws, are blameless.

The depravity is in the healthy survivors, and the true immorality comes as two bands of human survivors fight each other for the shopping center: Now look who's fighting over the bones! But "Dawn" is even more complicated than that, because the survivors have courage, too, and a certain nobility at times, and a sense of humor, and loneliness and dread, and are not altogether unlike ourselves. A-ha."