Editing Roger Ebert (section)

==Critical style==
[[File:Pauline Kael (1968).jpg|thumb|left|160px|Ebert cited [[Pauline Kael]] as an influence.]] 
Ebert cited [[Andrew Sarris]] and [[Pauline Kael]] as influences, and often quoted [[Robert Warshow]], who said: "A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man."<ref>{{cite web| title=Roger Ebert, In His Own Words, On the Education of a Film Critic| author=Matt Singer| date=April 5, 2013| work=Indiewire| url=https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/roger-ebert-in-his-own-words-on-the-education-of-a-film-critic-128145/}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=October 22, 2011 |title=Knocked up at the movies |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/knocked-up-at-the-movies |access-date=February 19, 2023 |archive-date=December 19, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219194552/https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/knocked-up-at-the-movies |url-status=live }}</ref> His own credo was: "Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions never lie to you."<ref name=NYTObit/> He tried to judge a movie on its style rather than its content, and often said "It's not what a movie is about, it's how it's about what it's about."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=November 26, 2003 |title=Bad Santa |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-santa-2003 |access-date=February 11, 2023 |archive-date=March 10, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220310015703/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-santa-2003 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news| last=Ebert| first=Roger| date=November 18, 2009| title=The man who stares at iguanas| work=Chicago Sun Times| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-2009| access-date=December 5, 2023| archive-date=June 22, 2021| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210622204552/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bad-lieutenant-port-of-call-new-orleans-2009| url-status=live}}</ref>

He awarded four stars to films of the highest quality, and generally a half star to those of the lowest, unless he considered the film to be "artistically inept and morally repugnant", in which case it received no stars, as with ''[[Death Wish II]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 1, 1982 |title=Death Wish II |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-ii-1982 |access-date=November 24, 2020 |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |archive-date=November 11, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111190006/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-wish-ii-1982 |url-status=live }}</ref> He explained that his star ratings had little meaning outside the context of the review:

{{cquote|When you ask a friend if ''[[Hellboy (2004 film)|Hellboy]]'' is any good, you're not asking if it's any good compared to ''[[Mystic River (film)|Mystic River]]'', you're asking if it's any good compared to ''[[The Punisher (2004 film)|The Punisher]]''. And my answer would be, on a scale of one to four, if ''[[Superman (1978 film)|Superman]]'' is four, then ''Hellboy'' is three and ''The Punisher'' is two. In the same way, if ''[[American Beauty (1999 film)|American Beauty]]'' gets four stars, then ''[[The United States of Leland]]'' clocks in at about two.<ref>{{cite web |first=Roger |last=Ebert |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040423/REVIEWS/404230305/1023 |title=Shaolin Soccer |newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |via=[[RogerEbert.com]] |date=April 23, 2004 |access-date=March 8, 2005 |archive-date=October 23, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121023024220/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040423/REVIEWS/404230305/1023 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

Although Ebert rarely wrote outright scathing reviews, he had a reputation for writing memorable ones for the films he really hated, such as ''[[North (1994 film)|North]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://time.com/2957019/roger-ebert-life-itself-brutal-reviews/ |magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] |title=7 of Roger Ebert's most brutal movie reviews |date=July 4, 2014 |access-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020115438/http://time.com/2957019/roger-ebert-life-itself-brutal-reviews/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Of that film, he wrote "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=July 22, 1994 |title=North |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/north-1994 |access-date=October 10, 2021 |archive-date=June 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609150838/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/north-1994 |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote that ''[[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. Oh, I've seen bad movies before. But they usually made me ''care'' about how bad they were. Watching ''Mad Dog Time'' is like waiting for the bus in a city where you're not sure they have a bus line" and concluded that the film "should be cut up to provide free ukulele picks for the poor."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=November 26, 1996 |title=Mad Dog Time |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-dog-time-1996 |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230214170859/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mad-dog-time-1996 |url-status=live }}</ref> Of ''[[Caligula (film)|Caligula]]'', he wrote "It is not good art, it is not good cinema, and it is not good porn" and approvingly quoted the woman in front of him at the drinking fountain, who called it "the worst piece of shit I have ever seen."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 22, 1980 |title=Caligula |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caligula-1980 |access-date= |archive-date=October 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201007010030/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/caligula-1980 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Ebert's reviews were also characterized by "dry wit."<ref name=SunTimesObit /> He often wrote in a deadpan style when discussing a movie's flaws; in his review of ''[[Jaws: The Revenge]]'', he wrote that Mrs. Brody's "friends pooh-pooh the notion that a shark could identify, follow or even care about one individual human being, but I am willing to grant the point, for the benefit of the plot. I believe that the shark wants revenge against Mrs. Brody. I do. I really do believe it. After all, her husband was one of the men who hunted this shark and killed it, blowing it to bits. And what shark wouldn't want revenge against the survivors of the men who killed it? Here are some things, however, that I do not believe", going on to list the other ways the film strained credulity.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=June 27, 1987 |title=Jaws: The Revenge |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jaws-the-revenge-1987 |access-date=February 14, 2023 |archive-date=August 22, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210822222928/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jaws-the-revenge-1987 |url-status=live }}</ref> He wrote "[[Pearl Harbor (film)|''Pearl Harbor'']] is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle. Its centerpiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialog, it will not be because you admire them."<ref>{{cite news| title=Pearl Harbor| author=Roger Ebert| date=May 25, 2001| work=[[Chicago Sun Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pearl-harbor-2001}}</ref>

{{quote box
| align = right
| width = 25em
| bgcolor = LightCyan
| quote = "[Ebert's prose] had a plain-spoken Midwestern clarity...a genial, conversational presence on the page...his criticism shows a nearly unequaled grasp of film history and technique, and formidable intellectual range, but he rarely seems to be showing off. He's just trying to tell you what he thinks, and to provoke some thought on your part about how movies work and what they can do".
| source = — [[A.O. Scott]], film critic for ''[[The New York Times]]''<ref name=Scott/>
}}
Ebert often included personal anecdotes in his reviews; reviewing ''[[The Last Picture Show]]'', he recalls his early days as a moviegoer: "For five or six years of my life (the years between when I was old enough to go alone, and when TV came to town) Saturday afternoon at the Princess was a descent into a dark magical cave that smelled of Jujubes, melted Dreamsicles and Crisco in the popcorn machine. It was probably on one of those Saturday afternoons that I formed my first critical opinion, deciding vaguely that there was something about [[John Wayne]] that set him apart from ordinary cowboys."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=December 21, 1971 |title=The Last Picture Show |work=[[Chicago Sun Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-picture-show-1971 |access-date=February 7, 2023 |archive-date=December 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171212015438/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-picture-show-1971 |url-status=live }}</ref> Reviewing [[Star Wars (film)|''Star Wars'']], he wrote: "Every once in a while I have what I think of as an out-of-the-body experience at a movie. When the ESP people use a phrase like that, they’re referring to the sensation of the mind actually leaving the body and spiriting itself off to China or Peoria or a galaxy far, far away. When I use the phrase, I simply mean that my imagination has forgotten it is actually present in a movie theater and thinks it’s up there on the screen. In a curious sense, the events in the movie seem real, and I seem to be a part of them...My list of other out-of-the-body films is a short and odd one, ranging from the artistry of [[Bonnie and Clyde (film)|''Bonnie and Clyde'']] or ''[[Cries and Whispers]]'' to the slick commercialism of [[Jaws (film)|''Jaws'']] and the brutal strength of ''[[Taxi Driver]]''. On whatever level (sometimes I’m not at all sure) they engage me so immediately and powerfully that I lose my detachment, my analytical reserve. The movie’s ''happening'', and it’s happening to me."<ref>{{cite news| title=Star Wars| author=Roger Ebert| date=1977| work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]]| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/star-wars-1977}}</ref> He sometimes wrote reviews in the forms of stories, poems, songs,<ref>{{cite news| author=Roger Ebert| title=Wet Hot American Summer| date=August 31, 2001| url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/wet-hot-american-summer-2001}}</ref> scripts, open letters,<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=September 14, 1997 |title=Great Movies: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-et-the-extra-terrestrial-1982 |access-date=February 12, 2023 |archive-date=January 29, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160129132649/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-et-the-extra-terrestrial-1982 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=July 16, 2004 |title=A Cinderella Story |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-cinderella-story-2004 |access-date= |archive-date=January 11, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180111134812/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-cinderella-story-2004 |url-status=live }}</ref> or imagined conversations.<ref>{{cite news |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=March 25, 1994 |title=The Hudsucker Proxy |work=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/hudsucker-proxy-1994 |url-status= |access-date= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708005214/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940325/REVIEWS/403250301/1023 |archive-date=July 8, 2011}}</ref>

[[Alex Ross (music critic)|Alex Ross]], music critic for ''[[The New Yorker]]'', wrote of how Ebert had influenced his writing: "I noticed how much Ebert could put across in a limited space. He didn't waste time clearing his throat. 'They meet for the first time when she is in her front yard practicing baton-twirling,' begins his review of [[Badlands (film)|''Badlands'']]. Often, he managed to smuggle the basics of the plot into a larger thesis about the movie, so that you don't notice the exposition taking place: '[[Broadcast News (film)|''Broadcast News'']] is as knowledgeable about the TV news-gathering process as any movie ever made, but it also has insights into the more personal matter of how people use high-pressure jobs as a way of avoiding time alone with themselves.' The reviews start off in all different ways, sometimes with personal confessions, sometimes with sweeping statements. One way or another, he pulls you in. When he feels strongly, he can bang his fist in an impressive way. His review of ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' ends thus: 'The whole huge grand mystery of the world, so terrible, so beautiful, seems to hang in the balance.'"<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Ross |first=Alex |date=April 15, 2013 |title=Learning From Ebert |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/learning-from-ebert |access-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-date=July 30, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220730174334/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/learning-from-ebert |url-status=live }}</ref>

In his introduction to ''The Great Movies III'', he wrote:

{{cquote|People often ask me, "Do you ever change your mind about a movie?" Hardly ever, although I may refine my opinion. Among the films here, I've changed on ''[[The Godfather Part II]]'' and ''[[Blade Runner]]''. My original review of ''Part II'' puts me in mind of the "brain cloud" that besets [[Tom Hanks]] in ''[[Joe Versus the Volcano]]''. I was simply wrong. In the case of ''Blade Runner'', I think the director's cut by [[Ridley Scott]] simply plays much better. I also turned around on ''[[Groundhog Day (film)|Groundhog Day]]'', which made it into this book when I belatedly caught on that it wasn't about the weatherman's predicament but about the nature of time and will. Perhaps when I first saw it I allowed myself to be distracted by [[Bill Murray]]'s mainstream comedy reputation. But someone in film school somewhere is probably even now writing a thesis about how Murray's famous cameos represent an injection of philosophy into those pictures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=The Great Movies III |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2010 |pages=xvii}}</ref>}}

In the first ''Great Movies'', he wrote:
{{Blockquote |text=
Movies do not change, but their viewers do. When I first saw ''[[La Dolce Vita]]'' in 1961, 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.}}

{{Blockquote |text=When I saw the movie around 1980, Marcello was the same age, but I was ten years older, had stopped drinking, and saw him not as 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 [[Marcello Mastroianni| Mastroianni]] died, I thought that [[Federico Fellini| 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ebert |first=Roger |title=The Great Movies |date=2002 |url=https://archive.org/details/greatmovies0000eber/page/243/mode/1up?view=theater |location=New York |edition=First |publisher=Broadway Books |page=243 |isbn=9780767910323 |oclc=47989891}}</ref>
}}