something about “Better Living Through Criticism” by A.O. Scott

After Roger Ebert died in 2013, A.O. Scott at The New York Times became probably the most respected and read movie critic in America. In 2017, he published a thoughtful book on criticism, Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. A central idea in Scott's book is that all art is criticism.

I enjoyed Scott's exercises of criticism using selected works of art and writing. I did not enjoy the dialectic chapters; these were supposed to be funny, but Scott's humor is stale.

Notes:

• Scott shoehorns a quote from Greek poet Hesiod into this thing—it is completely unnecessary, but I read it a couple times to savor its prose: “Never by daytime will there be an end to work and pain, nor in the night to weariness, when the gods will send anxieties to trouble us.”
• Scott stopped reviewing movies in March 2023 and started writing for The New York Times Book Review.
• He attracted haters (and defenders) online after publishing an indifferent review of Marvel's “The Avengers” in May 2012. Indiscriminate actor Samuel L. Jackson led the attack.
• Scott's review of "Joker" was much more negative than “The Avengers.” But I enjoyed "Joker."

 

something about Roger Ebert's autobiography "Life Itself"

Roger Ebert was a talented, Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic and writer who worked for the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he and Gene Siskel, film critic for rival paper Chicago Tribune, began co-hosting a weekly movie review show in Chicago. The no-frills program was picked up for national syndication and eventually moved to commercial network television. The odd couple—plump, mop-haired Roger wearing glasses next to tall, thin Gene—having tense, insightful arguments and giving thumbs-up/thumbs-down movie reviews became a pop-culture phenomenon in the 1980s and 90s. After 53-year-old Siskel died in 1999, Ebert continued the show format with other critics.

Ebert was diagnosed with cancer of the thyroid and salivary glands in 2002, and his treatment and surgeries later led to the removal of his lower jaw. Ebert, disfigured and no longer able to speak, continued to write, and his blog attracted a loyal audience. He reviewed movies for the Chicago Sun-Times for 46 years and was on TV for 31. Ebert was 70 when he died.

His patient, careful autobiography, Life Itself, is traditional and lovely. Ebert describes his parents, his childhood (including Catholic school), his career, his alcoholism (and then his pain-killer addition during cancer treatments), and his relationships, including the close, competitive relationship he had with Siskel. Ebert's writing about his disfigurement and condition is touching. I also enjoyed reading his views on the evolution of film promotion over the years and his descriptions of his interviewing habits.

 

Read some of his interviews:

• "Who's gonna get me a beer?" An interview with Lee Marvin by Roger Ebert, October 10, 1970
• Interview with George Peppard by Roger Ebert, February 18, 1968
• Interview with John Wayne (1969) by Roger Ebert, June 29, 1969

And one passage early in the autobiography sneaks in this gut-punch.

The optometrist had me read the charts and slowly straightened up. "Has Roger ever worn glasses?" he asked my mother. "No. He hasn't needed them." The doctor said: "He's probably always needed them. He's very shortsighted." He wrote me out a prescription. "Wasn't he ever tested?" It had never occurred to anyone. My parents and my aunt Martha the nurse monitored my health, which was good; I was in the hospital only twice, to have my tonsils and appendix removed, and had monthly radiation treatments for ear infections (they were probably responsible for the salivary cancer I developed in my sixties.) I'd never complained about eyesight, and no one noticed any problems.

Life Itself was published in 2011.