Editing Roger Ebert (section)

===Relations with filmmakers===
Ebert wrote [[Martin Scorsese]]'s first review, for ''[[Who's That Knocking at My Door]]'', and predicted the director could be "an American Fellini someday."<ref name=Who'sThat/> He later wrote, "Of the directors who started making films since I came on the job, the best is Martin Scorsese. His camera is active, not passive. It doesn’t regard events, it participates in them. There is a sequence in ''[[GoodFellas]]'' that follows Henry Hill’s last day of freedom, before the cops swoop down. Scorsese uses an accelerating pacing and a paranoid camera that keeps looking around, and makes us feel what Hill feels. It is easy enough to make an audience feel basic emotions ('Play them like a piano,' Hitchcock advised), but hard to make them share a state of mind. Scorsese can do it."<ref name=Twenty-Five/> In 2000, Scorsese joined Ebert on his show in choosing the best films of the 1990s.<ref name=Scorsese/>

Ebert was an admirer of [[Werner Herzog]], and conducted a Q&A session with him at the [[Walker Art Center|Walker Arts Center]] in 1999. It was there that Herzog read his "Minnesota Declaration" which defined his idea of "ecstatic truth."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=April 30, 1999 |title=Herzog's Minnesota Declaration: Defining 'ecstatic truth' |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/herzogs-minnesota-declaration-defining-ecstatic-truth |website=RogerEbert.com |access-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418224831/https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/herzogs-minnesota-declaration-defining-ecstatic-truth |url-status=live }}</ref> Herzog dedicated his ''[[Encounters at the End of the World]]'' to Ebert, and Ebert responded with an open letter of gratitude.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20071117%2FPEOPLE%2F71117002 |title=Roger Ebert. "A letter to Werner Herzog: In praise of rapturous truth" rogerebert.com November&nbsp;17, 2007 |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=November 17, 2007 |access-date=October 17, 2009 |archive-date=December 31, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081231100314/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/PEOPLE/71117002 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ebert often quoted something Herzog told him: "our civilization is starving for new images."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=August 28, 2005 |title=A conversation with Werner Herzog |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-conversation-with-werner-herzog |access-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-date=April 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418224832/https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/a-conversation-with-werner-herzog |url-status=live }}</ref>

When [[Vincent Gallo]]'s ''[[The Brown Bunny]]'' (2003) premiered at [[Cannes Film Festival | Cannes]], Ebert called it the worst film in the history of the festival. Gallo responded by putting a curse on his colon and a hex on his prostate. Ebert replied, "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than ''The Brown Bunny.''" Gallo called Ebert a "fat pig". Ebert replied: "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of ''The Brown Bunny.''"<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Gallo goes on the offensive after 'Bunny' flop| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals/gallo-goes-on-the-offensive-after-bunny-flop}}</ref> Ebert gave the director's cut a positive review, writing that Gallo "is not the director of the same ''Brown Bunny'' I saw at Cannes, and the film now plays so differently that I suggest the original Cannes cut be included as part of the eventual DVD, so that viewers can see for themselves how 26 minutes of aggressively pointless and empty footage can sink a potentially successful film...Make no mistake: The Cannes version was a bad film, but now Gallo's editing has set free the good film inside."<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Revised editing releases a much improved 'Brown Bunny'| work=Chicago Sun-Times| date=September 3, 2004| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-brown-bunny-2004}}</ref> 

In 2005, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' critic [[Patrick Goldstein]] wrote that the year’s Best Picture Nominees were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that … bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to ''Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,'' a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic." Rob Schneider responded in an open letter: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind … Maybe you didn’t win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven’t invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers." Reviewing ''[[Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo]]'', Ebert responded: "Reading this, I was about to observe that Schneider can dish it out but he can’t take it. Then I found he’s not so good at dishing it out, either. I went online and found that Patrick Goldstein has won a National Headliner Award, a Los Angeles Press Club Award, a RockCritics.com award, and the Publicists’ Guild award for lifetime achievement ... Schneider is correct, and Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed ''Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo'' while passing on the opportunity to participate in ''[[Million Dollar Baby]],'' ''[[Ray (film)| Ray]]'', ''[[The Aviator (2004 film) |The Aviator]],'' ''[[Sideways]]'' and ''[[Finding Neverland (film)| Finding Neverland]].'' As chance would have it, I ''have'' won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks."<ref>{{cite news| title='Bigalow' reaches new giga-low| author=Roger Ebert| date=August 11, 2005| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deuce-bigalow-european-gigolo-2005}}</ref> After Ebert's cancer surgery, he received a bouquet from "Your Least Favorite Movie Star, Rob Schneider". Ebert wrote of the flowers, "They were a reminder, if I needed one, that although Rob Schneider might (in my opinion) have made a bad movie, he is not a bad man, and no doubt tried to make a wonderful movie, and hopes to again. I hope so, too."<ref>{{cite news| title=A bouquet arrives...| work=Roger Ebert's Journal| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-bouquet-arrives}}</ref>