Roger Ebert's Journal

The application of Heisenberg's Principle of Indeterminacy to the social sciences has always been of interest to me - that merely by observing a real-life social occurrence (not on a sub-atomic level) might very well change not just the event's outcome, but the very nature of the event itself. I cannot wait to see Morris's documentary, writings on which by you and Jim have been fascinating, to say the least.

I am somewhat incredulous that after years of your trumpeting your mantra about a film's quality and its subject matter being mutually exclusive (how a film is about what it purports to be about, etc), there is still some confusion among some of your readers. Guys, it really isn't rocket science. That I love Apocalypse, Now doesn't mean I want to invade South-East Asia.

I don't know when I first encountered this piece's title phrase--probably shortly after I began reading your reviews more then a decade ago--but it seemed the ideal mode of film criticism and, when involved with questions about cinema, I've always tried to tie my judgment to the method and not the subject. About a year ago, I encountered an essay by Henry James ("The Art of Fiction") that makes a similar point--what matters is not the author's "donnee" or subject matter but rather the execution. So, naturally, I wondered if you'd ever realized that you James had developed similar critical guidelines for different media.

I once was discussing the movie A Civil Action with a friend. She didn't like it because it wasn't enough about the victims. My response was "Um...that's because it was about the lawyer." She never did seem to get it.

I admire your open-mindedness, but given the constraints on your time I'm surprised you would have any interest in wading through the blind hate and idiocy that comprise most internet comments. It's the lowest form of discourse, just above road rage.

Does art fail if we disagree with it after we’ve seen it? If a sappy love story fails for me because I think it was unearned or dumb, should a documentary fail if I remain unconvinced of the truth it is trying to reveal? Even if it is presented with rich images and lots of drama? Perhaps I only need to be moved a little for it to succeed – to come away from it feeling more compassion, more/less angry, or have my opinion be changed in some way.

Of course, in the general case, how closed one's mind is figures heavily here, and is that fair to the art involved? Perhaps, perhaps not. I have to admit that I have a hard time appreciating the esthetics of a film whose message I think is abhorrent. At what point does bad message triumph over good esthetics?

Roger said, "It should be possible to admire a film with subject matter you deplore".

This is precisely why I can't wait for Oliver Stone's W.

Seems to me that people have forgotten the meaning of the word impartial in these days and times. I didn't see you taking sides in your previous post at all.

Hi Roger,

I too found "Hillary and Bill" to be politically neutral. I can't see how anyone who read it could interpret it otherwise. Also I look forward (with some degree of dread, due to the subject matter) to seeing "SOP" I don't always "get" Errol Morris's work, but I have you to thank for bringing his work to my attention.

I have pondered the meaning of the line you used to intro this article You've said it about movies several times "It's not what the movie is about but how it is about it." I teach kids about making their own movies (videos) and the longer I do it, the more I think about that line. Especially after seeing the movie line up at Ebertfest this year - e.g. The Cell.

I hope for and ask that at some time you take on the challenge of explaining that "but how it is about it" line in book form with movie examples and commentary.

Best wishes on your continued recovery,
Don

I've known you to be 'left' of me for a long time, however, I actually know how to comprehend the written word and didn't imagine you were endorsing anyone. I also don't let your political nuances [in movie reviews] interfere with my pure enjoyment of your writing. Your utter bafflement with the response to the peice is, I think, because we assume all people take the time to understand what it is they are reading, when many interject thier own prejudices, particularly with politics, or simply think they're reading something they're not. As always, your piece was clear, it was the mindset of some readers that needed clarifying!

Sadly, I guess this proves some people are so used to seeing the world through their blinders that they can't even comprehend the written words of Roger Ebert, one of the most effective communicators of our generation when it comes to the written word.

I'm a Republican and would call myself a conservative(I say call myself because I imagine some people would not categorize me as such). I also think you're a brilliant writer and have never had a problem with any of your reviews on a political basis.

I find the sort of nit-picking about political-bias that people like Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt, along with some internet conservatives, do when they are discussing a book or movie and consequently artistic criticism to be ridiculous. It's as if they can only view the world through a political lense and no other aspects of humanity exsist.

I remember one time in particular I was listening to Hugh Hewitt interview Tom Brokaw about his book Boom!: Voices of the Sixties. Hugh proceeded to badger Brokaw for the entire hour almost never mentioning anything about the book directly but instead trying to prove some kind of point about a political bias.

The most disparaging thing about the interview was that I think, Hugh who is an intelligent and thoughtful individual was conducting it in this way not because he really cared about the books political bias but because he thought he was playing into some sort of paranoia about bias in mainstream media his audience had. Sadly, he might of been onto something.

I'm really glad that I found your blog, Roger. Whether I am interested in seeing the film or not, I'm always sure that I'll enjoy your review. That's a pretty good compliment, eh? -- I read your reviews for their entertainment value.

The strange thing is that readers will write you comments and say you are right or wrong, or something else, because you don't agree with their point of view. Ugh. Irritating.

Great column!

Reading your comment about the documenatary, Standard Operating Procedure, I thought I'd point you to an article co-authored by Morris, about the very same subject. It's a month or so old, from the New Yorker but I discovered it recently and found it fascinating, and now see the infamous photos (and the photographer) in a whole new light.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/24/080324fa_fact_gourevitch?currentPage=all

Part of the intrigue, at least to me, is not the questions that are answered, but the questions that we are still required to ponder. I like that this article (and presumably, the documentary) allow us to come to our own conclusions. We're free to despite the photographer, or empathize, or pity. Beyond that, "the war" is merely a backdrop, helping to shape our own individual perceptions.

Glad to see you writing regularly, Roger.

When we plop down into our seats at the movies, we bring a lot of baggage with us. It seems many of us are incapable of seeing the movie we are watching without internally editing it at the same time. Therefore, we wind up seeing a movie that is part what the film makers intended and part what we want the film to be. Two of my friends asked me where the aliens came from in the last act of Spielberg's AI. My brother told me he got the same question, even though Gigolo Joe tells the young AI - in the future there will only be us(paraphrased as I don't remember the exact quote). People do NOT watch attentively AND they edit, using their own personal baggage. Lastly, there is a very basic confusion on certain hot issues, politics and race in particular. If I say, "Oprah Winfrey is a Black woman and Roger Ebert is a White man", I've made a statement about race and sex, but I have NOT made a racist nor sexist remark. Unfortunately, many people do not understand that distinction.

There is a too much passion and not enough objectivity in politics right now. Supporters of candidates or policies are sensitive to bias or preferential treatment whether real or not, that’s why some of the readers had a strong reaction. Speaking of too much passion how about a post of your work with the great filmmaker Russ Meyer.

I didn't respond to your last article (which I thought was great, btw), but I can understand some of the backlash. Particularly, characterizing Hillary as "heroic", which implies she's striving for a bigger cause than her own-- her party's, the country's, maybe?

Rather many would say "selfish", and attribute her doggedness to the kind of personality disorder that is so easy to associate with the Clintons.

We live in a world where people do not (and are not encouraged to) think or act, but rather react. Reaction is instantaneous and emotional, whereas thinking and acting take time and do not necessarily flow directly from emotion. In a world where the stimulation of emotion is of paramount importance, because it is easier and faster than stimulating the intellect, because emotion lends itself better to competition and drama than intellectual consideration, reaction is seen as the best and only means of letting one's voice be heard on one subject or another. It allows people to "score" points quickly, and swiftly gain supporters and mark our detractors; it can even lead to fame (how many of the leading pundits today are renowned for their careful deliberation upon any given topic, explaining in calm language how they have arrived at a given opinion?)

Much of this situation has to do with vision - with the moving picture. As you, Mr. Ebert, have mentioned numerous times, film is a medium better suited for emotions, while books are more suited for intellectual argument. And people know this, whether they actually know it or not. It's easier to cry during a movie, than while reading a book; a visual image has more (emotional) impact than a written description. (Is it any coincidence that the most vociferous pundits tend to favour television than other mediums?) Even though you presented your hypothetical Clinton film in print (as a quasi treatment), you were really presenting a hypothetical film, and a few of your readers viewed it as such - and reacted as they would to an actual film.

(And my train of thought petered out. Tch. Sorry.) Good to see that you're back in the review chair again (true?)!

Don't worry Roger, most of us got what you were going for perfectly well. Welcome to the world of blogging and anonymous comments, where the lowest element often rises to the top. It shouldn't need clarification that discussing something does not equate to an endorsement of said thing--so just know that the good readers (most of us, I think) are with you.

It would be so refreshing if more people from Hollywood (or related to the movie business at all) were conservative. It's hard to understand the extreme left slant, but there's something about that business that causes all brain activity to swing to the marxist/state control way of life.

Ebert doesn't address my own point about his movie idea (that Hillary Clinton is just not as interesting a subject as he thinks she is), but his post here does speak to the reason I've always admired him as a critic.

There are a lot of films Ebert has liked that I haven't, but only a small number he has disliked and I have enjoyed. That's because his reviews convey his passion for (and knowledge of) the art of filmmaking. If a movie is well made, if it meets the requirements of the craft, Ebert will probably give it the by-now proverbial thumbs-up. A badly made movie has almost no chance of getting his approval.

By happy coincidence I don't like badly made movies either, and have found Ebert's reviews over the years an excellent way of saving time and money. I've found I can save even more time by skipping the review of a two star movie as well (his reviews of one star and less movies are often devastating and deserve to be read in full). It is true that some of the movies he admires I think are boring, obtuse, pretentious or worse. There are good reasons -- or anyway what I think are good reasons -- why I dislike them, but never that I can recall did those reasons have to do with the movie makers' craft. Ebert has always had that covered.

Roger (and those readers intimating people are somehow dumb, what with not being able to understand a simple post, and all),

you DID include the sentence about her going on and on having a sort of heroism about it. You DID include that sentence. Presumably, the sentence means what it says. Many people- most, I suspect- would disagree, and do not see anything heroic- ANY kind of heroic- in it. Many people see just the opposite, in fact.

If that baffles you, perhaps you ought to have omitted the sentence, or used a word other than 'heroism'. But I'm of the group that finds it as hard to empathize with Clinton as I would with Cheney or Rove or any other such person. I'm all for empathy, but sometimes there is no there there.

I agree with Liz:May 12, 2008 11:33 AM. The comments on your blog are on the more thoughtful side, but comment pages from cnn to espn.com are typically dominated by vitriolic bile. Personally, I'm glad you are writing material in addition to your reviews. Your comments are thoughtful and always discussion worthy. Best wishes for your health!

I'm a passionate supporter of Barrack Obama but I had no problem with your recent posting about the the cinematic possibilities of the Clintons. It's true, they are fascinating characters both for their flaws and for their strengths and to deny that or forbid the mention of their name is silly censoriousness. I know that passions have become heated on both sides to the point where any mention of either candidate gets filtered through the lens of whether it is "good" or "bad" for their favorite. I think this is especially true if one is unsure of the motives or agenda of the messenger. Perhaps those like me who are longtime fans of your work and know you to be sometimes wrong but always decent and reasonable were able to read your posting without the predisposition to find something sinister lurking underneath while others who maybe followed a link from elsewhere were looking specifically for political messages rather than thoughtful musings.

Leni Riefenstahl was certainly an interesting figure. Pauline Kael gave a rather brave review on the subject that she produced the two best films ever made by a woman. David Mamet said in his work on drama that she made "advertisements for murder".

I would be interested to see how you would handle the material - the desire to humanise applied to a propaganda machine whose purpose was complete dehumanisation. What qualities could there be in the film beyond technical skill and the ability to manipulate? Don't the very qualities that make the film powerful make it worse? Why apply all your craft to such hideous subject matter? Necessity? Ambition? Do we need come to a moral resolution at all?

Four stars? Two thumbs up? Zero stars? Two Thumbs down? You get my point.

In her later photographs in Sudan you see her craft divorced from propaganda. She is race conscious but scarcely racist in any meaningful sense. These are some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen; She saw it and taught me to see it. I am lucky, in a way, that my country has (not without resentment) accepted a measure of Sudanese refugees, mostly from the Dinka people. Such astonishing skin tones.

I got it, I'm happy to say. At least I hope my comment read that way. If anything, I assumed the opposite about you — doesn't matter of course. Knowing your everyman/scholarly approach to film, I figured you were selecting the most dramatic story. Done in back rooms and hotels, on phones and in "Ballston" (campaign hq) would really be fascinating.

It is interesting how film is art and communication at the same time. I agree that, while the point of a film can be to instruct, it is always art and can be appreciated out of context. It's always better to keep the context in mind, however, as a way to understand the subject matter. I wish that I could refer to the text, but on an interstitial on Turner Classic Movies, an historian refers to Gone with the Wind as a movie that he can appreciate if not like for the two dimensional African American characters.

I applaud your wanting to keep partisan politics out of this site. However, I suggest you tell that to other reviewers your have on the site (see Iron Man review.)

The only real issue I had with the review was the description of events at Abu Ghraib as "unspeakable". Were the photos of the live beheadings, eye gougings, castrations and powerdrills through elbows and kneecaps "redacted"?

I think what people like Paul above don't get is that the word "heroic" does not always mean "perfectionism" or "the qualities of a person one should emulate". They misunderstand how the word is used in a literary sense and because of that they misunderstand what you are trying to say. (I hope this misunderstanding is due to ignorance, but sometimes I suspect it's not.)

A hero or heroine in a literary sense is a protagonist that brings a certain quality to the story, and that quality is not perfection: it's grandeur. A literary hero is larger than life.

I guess Richard Nixon would make a great literary hero for the movies.

I remember the shame of his resignation in 1974. Saturday Night Live was still making jokes about him five years later, yet the man lived a productive twenty years after his resignation. That is heroism, for the man spent his last years trying to redeem himself for disgrace.

When I read Hillary and Bill I didn't think you were endorsing either candidate. But I did think that you view of the Clintons, and the campaign had changed somehow since the beginning of the contest. I didn't try to decipher any point of view derived from that change, but though I never liked the Clintons much, I think I do empathize with them.

Hillary grew up with a very tough father who drove her into the ground assuming that if a school gave her an A it was because they were going easy on her. I think this gave her a very skewed view of life. Part of a movie about her would surely involve some kind of back story like that.

Movies are certainly filled with heroes, anti-heroes, and villains; the best of whom we know and even attempt to understand, even if we don't excuse them.

I certainly did not see that column as pro-Clinton. If anything, it was a deft and subtle jab at the Clintons and the pathos of their lives and relationship to each other. They are deeply flawed and fascinating creatures, and their lust for power is just astonishing. I guess I'm sounding like one of those pesky elites that some people detest so much these days, but your subtlety is lost on a lot of people who can only think and analyze in the most shallow and literal fashion. Too bad for them and for everyone else.

I doubt that Shakespeare totally agreed with MacBeth's politics or found nothing wrong with his character. Yet, he thought MacBeth's story would make an interesting and worthwhile stage drama. Surely, similar judgments guided your idea about whether a Bill and Hillary movie could be interesting and worthwhile. Also, your view that cheerfully hanging on to the bitter (really bitter) end has something "heroic" about it doesn't make you the moral idiot some of your readers seem to think it does, at least in my opinion. I think a Bill and Hillary movie is an excellent idea .. maybe an Oliver Stone production.

No. I was wrong. Oliver Stone shouldn't make the movie. The Coen brothers. And it should have a funny and violent flavor and especially a quality somewhere nearly equal to "Fargo" (something they haven't managed to accomplish in all the years since that one was made, including "No Country ..." in spite of its oscars). And they should devise a part in it somewhere for Steve Buscemi (but, of course, not as either of the Clintons or even Al Gore).