Roger Ebert Passes Away At the Age Of 70

Today’s loss of Roger Ebert, hit me like few other celebrity losses have (John Candy and Phil Hartman would be the only exceptions). I’ve been thinking about it on and off since hearing the news. How my life will be different after this. How seeing a movie will never be the same.

For the past 20 or so years of my life I’ve been reading Roger. Before the Internet made his reviews easily accessible, I had several volumes of his movie reviews on my bookshelf. I didn’t always agree with Roger. He had a definite liking for movies I found distasteful and vice versa, but he was an expert in film. And like any expert, he had much knowledge to pass on to the rest of us. He seemed to know everything and he spotted things in films and helped me to understand films in a different way. I eventually began to seek out his reviews at the first available moment after seeing a new film, just so I could see what he had to say about it. It didn’t matter whether we had the same opinion, just that what he might say about it would be insightful or funny or illuminating.

And then, a few years back, he began blogging on subjects other than movies. I found out he was quite liberal, as am I. Our views on politics and life actually meshed pretty well. He was one of my few RSS feeds and I clicked that feed eagerly every time it lit up with a new post. He went away for a while and came back discussing his absence and his battles with cancer. He never held back, he wrote about his life personally, like you were a friend he was confiding in. It was some of the most touching writing I’ve ever had the privilege to read. Later on, whether he was writing about gun control, abortion or the night he met his future wife, what he had to say was always poetic and definitely a good read. The writing stayed with you long after you’d read it.

Just this week, only two days past, he posted a blog about how his cancer had returned, this time in his leg, and he’d be slowing down his movie reviews and other activities to battle it, but that he had several projects in the works - a completely revamped website, a movie about his life with Martin Scorsese, a kickstarter campaign to restart the At The Movies show. And then this morning I wake to the shocking news he’s passed. The future is somehow sadder now. It feels like a friend I went to the movies with is now gone and seeing a new film will never be the same.

Roger Ebert, I will miss you. Though we never spoke, you touched my life in so many ways. RIP

If you were a fan of Roger, like I was, you may also want to read:

The statement released by his wife, Chaz Ebert.

And ‘A Remembrance’ by Neil Steinberg of the Chicago Sun-Times.