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Roger Ebert

241 quotes

“When I think about the kinds of movies that make me cry, that make tears come to my eyes, I usually don't think about sad films. Sad films, I sort of just look at it. It's movies that are about selflessness, that are about sacrifice, about humans that believe in the good of the human race that sometimes move me.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of what use is freedom of speech to those who fear to offend?”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion (1990 Edition), p. 735
“Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Living Testament" speech at 11th Hour, Colorado Public Television (1994)
“Well, what is a political film? A film about politicians? Or a film about issues — sexism, racism, the environment, nuclear policy? I decided on the broader definition. If I'd limited myself to films about politicians, it would have been a short list: How many characters in any mainstream American movie seem aware of the political process, or belong to a party?”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ranking "the 20 best political films of the past two decades" in "The Big Picture: Roger Ebert" in MotherJones (May/June 1996)
“Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Critical Eye" column, Yahoo! Internet Life (September 1998), p. 66
“I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV. It was more entertaining than The Brown Bunny.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of an early version of The Brown Bunny, when it was shown at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival (4 June 2003)
“Film theory has nothing to do with film. Students presumably hope to find out something about film, and all they will find out is an occult and arcane language designed only for the purpose of excluding those who have not mastered it and giving academic rewards to those who have. No one with any literacy, taste or intelligence would want to teach these courses, so the bona fide definition of people teaching them are people who are incapable of teaching anything else.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted by David Weddle in "Lights, Camera, Action. Marxism, Semiotics, Narratology: Film School Isn't What It Used to Be, One Father Discovers." Los Angeles Times (13 July 2003)
“A depressing number of people seem to process everything literally. They are to wit as a blind man is to a forest, able to find every tree, but each one coming as a surprise.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First published in the "Movie Answer Man" column (18 September 2005)
“I didn't have a stop watch, but it seemed to me the elephantine action scenes were pretty much spaced out evenly through the movie. There was no starting out slow and building up to a big climax. The movie is pretty much all climax. The Autobots® and Decepticons® must not have read the warning label on their Viagra. At last we see what a four-hour erection looks like.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Fall of the Revengers, discussing the film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen "Roger Ebert's Journal" (24 June 2009)
“I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First published in the "Roger Ebert's Journal" column (19 May 2010)
“I wear a pedometer, a little device that counts every step. It works as a goad, because you walk additional distances to pile up the numbers. The average person walks 2,000 to 3,000 steps a day. I walk 10,000 steps a day. I have lost a lot of weight as a result.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Film Critic's Windy City Home' in The New York Times (13 February 2005)
“The Golden Thumb is not as good as the Oscar, but it is a lot of fun.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Film Critic's Windy City Home' in The New York Times (13 February 2005)
“I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic — the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For 40 years, I didn't miss a single deadline, but since July, I have missed every one. I also, to my intense disappointment, missed the Telluride and Toronto film festivals. Having just written my first review since June (The Queen), I think an update is in order.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Roger writes to readers" Chicago Sun Times (11 October 2006)
“I have discovered a goodness and decency in people as exhibited in all the letters, e-mails, flowers, gifts and prayers that have been directed my way. I am overwhelmed and humbled. I offer you my most sincere thanks and my deep and abiding gratitude. If I ever write my memoirs, I have some spellbinding material. How does the Joni Mitchell song go? "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone"? One thing I've discovered is that I love my job more than I thought I did, and I love my wife even more!”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Roger writes to readers" Chicago Sun Times (11 October 2006)
“I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, "If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanation." That is why 90% of academic film theory is bullshit. Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: O, Synecdoche, my Synecdoche!," (10 November 2008)
“Pixar is the first studio that is a movie star.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Twitter Feed (21 June 2010)
“It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a life-saver for me. My ability to think and write have not been affected. And on the Web, my real voice finds expression.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: TED Talk (March 2011)
“I support freedom of choice. My choice is to not support abortion, except in cases of a clear-cut choice between the lives of the mother and child. A child conceived through incest or rape is innocent and deserves the right to be born.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: How I am a Roman Catholic" Roger Ebert's Journal (1 March 2013)
“I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear... My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Go Gentle Into That Good Night" Roger Ebert's Journal (2 May 2009)
“I must slow down now, which is why I'm taking what I like to call "a leave of presence." What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What's more, I'll be able at last to do what I've always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review. … So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I'll see you at the movies.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Leave of Presence" (2 April 2013)
“Dr. Strangelove's humor is generated by a basic comic principle: People trying to be funny are never as funny as people trying to be serious and failing. The laughs have to seem forced on unwilling characters by the logic of events. A man wearing a funny hat is not funny. But if the man doesn't know he's wearing a funny hat--now you've got something. The characters in Dr. Strangelove do not know their hats are funny.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Vol. I (2003), pp. 156-157
“In my very first review I was already jaded, observing of "Galia," an obscure French film, that it "opens and closes with arty shots of the ocean, mother of us all, but in between it's pretty clear that what is washing ashore is the French New Wave." My pose in those days was one of superiority to the movies, although just when I had the exact angle of condescension calculated, a movie would open that disarmed my defenses and left me ecstatic and joyful.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Herzog by his example gave me a model for the film artist: fearless, driven by his subjects, indifferent to commercial considerations, trusting his audience to follow him anywhere. In the 38 years since I saw my first Herzog film, after an outpouring of some 50 features and documentaries, he has never created a single film that is compromised, shameful, made for pragmatic reasons or uninteresting. Even his failures are spectacular.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I lay awake wondering how I could pray for faith to a God I could not believe in without faith. That seemed to leave me suspended between two questions. These logical puzzles were generated spontaneously within my mind. They didn’t come from my school or my family. Most of my neighborhood friends were Protestants who were not interested in theories about God, apart from the fact that of course he existed. I bought the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church lock, stock, and barrel, apart from the God problem.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For many years I visualized the Soviet Union as a land where the sun never came out and enslaved Catholic peasants labored under lowering skies for their godless rulers. But our theology was often very practical: All men are created equal. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you. Follow the Ten Commandments, which we studied at length, except for adultery, “which you children don’t have to worry about.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Catholicism made me a humanist before I knew the word. When people rail against “secular humanism,” I want to ask them if humanism itself would be okay with them if it wasn’t so secular. Then I want to ask, “Why do you think it is secular?” This would lead to my opinion that their beliefs were not humanist.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Absolutists frighten me. During all the endless discussions on my blog about evolution, intelligent design, God, and the afterworld, numbering altogether thousands of comments, I have never named my beliefs, although readers have freely informed me that I am an atheist, and agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist — which I am.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have no patience for churches that evangelize aggressively. I have no interest in being instructed in what I must do to be saved. I prefer vertical prayer, directed up toward heaven, rather than horizontal prayer, directed sideways toward me. I believe a worthy church must grow through attraction, not promotion. I am wary of zealotry; even as a child I was suspicious of those who, as I often heard, were “more Catholic than the pope.” If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we must regard their beliefs with the same respect our own deserve.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many readers have informed me that it is a tragic and dreary business to go into death without faith. I don’t feel that way. “Faith” is neutral. All depends on what is believed in.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Raised as a Roman Catholic, I internalized the social values of that faith and still hold most of them, even though its theology no longer persuades me. I have no quarrel with what anyone else subscribes to; everyone deals with these things in his own way, and I have no truths to impart. All I require of a religion is that it be tolerant of those who do not agree with it. I know a priest whose eyes twinkle when he says, “You go about God’s work in your way, and I’ll go about it in His.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why did they give an R rating to a movie perfect for teenagers?”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Almost Famous (15 September 2000)
“Old age isn't for sissies, and neither is this film. … This is now. We are filled with optimism and expectation. Why would we want to see such a film, however brilliantly it has been made? I think it's because a film like Amour has a lesson for us that only the cinema can teach: the cinema, with its heedless ability to leap across time and transcend lives and dramatize what it means to be a member of humankind's eternal audience.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Amour (9 January 2013)
“Watching Avatar, I felt sort of the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. James Cameron's film has been the subject of relentlessly dubious advance buzz, just as his Titanic was. Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Avatar (11 December 2009)
“Especially in its opening scenes, Ballast is "slower" and "quieter" than we usually expect. You know what? So is life, most of the time. We don't wake up and immediately start engaging with plot points. But Ballast inexorably grows and deepens and gathers power and absorbs us. I always say I hardly ever cry at sad films, but I sometimes do, just a little, at films about good people.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Ballast (29 October 2008)
“I said this is the Batman movie I've been waiting for; more correctly, this is the movie I did not realize I was waiting for, because I didn't realize that more emphasis on story and character and less emphasis on high-tech action was just what was needed. The movie works dramatically in addition to being an entertainment. There's something to it.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Batman Begins (13 June 2005)
“Dances With Wolves has the kind of vision and ambition that is rare in movies today. It is not a formula movie, but a thoughtful, carefully observed story. It is a Western at a time when the Western is said to be dead. It asks for our imagination and sympathy. It takes its time, three hours, to unfold. It is a personal triumph for Kevin Costner, the intelligent young actor of Field of Dreams, who directed the film and shows a command of story and of visual structure that is startling; this movie moves so confidently and looks so good it seems incredible that it's a directorial debut.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Dances with Wolves (9 November 1990)
“Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides "a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did," because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient. All we can learn from a film like this is that millions of people can be led, and millions more killed, by madness leashed to racism and the barbaric instincts of tribalism.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Downfall (11 March 2005)
“Films like Fargo are why I love the movies.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Fargo (8 March 1996)
“The movie, as everyone knows, is about a man who finds himself living the same day over and over and over again. He is the only person in his world who knows this is happening, and after going through periods of dismay and bitterness, revolt and despair, suicidal self-destruction and cynical recklessness, he begins to do something that is alien to his nature. He begins to learn.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Groundhog Day (1993) in Chicago Sun-Times (30 January 2005)
“Seated in a dark theater, I reached out my hand for that of my wife’s. She and I had visited the same beach and discussed visiting it with our children and grandchildren. An icy finger ran slowly down our spines. Such a connection can be terrifying. What does it mean? We are the playthings of the gods.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of The Impossible (19 December 2012)
“The R rating refers to Logue's use of vulgarity. It is utterly inexplicable. This is an excellent film for teenagers.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of The King's Speech (15 December 2010)
“Empathy has been in short supply in our nation recently. Our leaders are quick to congratulate us on our own feelings, slow to ask us to wonder how others feel. But maybe times are changing. Every Lee film is an exercise in empathy. He is not interested in congratulating the black people in his audience, or condemning the white ones. He puts human beings on the screen, and asks his audience to walk a little while in their shoes.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Malcolm X (18 November 1992)
“The Man in the Moon is like a great short story, one of those masterpieces of language and mood where not one word is wrong, or unnecessary. It flows so smoothly from start to finish that it hardly even seems like an ordinary film. Usually I am aware of the screenwriter putting in obligatory scenes. I can hear the machinery grinding. Not this time. Although, in retrospect, I can see how carefully the plot was put together, how meticulously each event was prepared for, as I watched the film I was only aware of life passing by.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of The Man in the Moon (4 October 1991)
“Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an ordinary man can achieve. Milk was the right person in the right place at the right time, and he rose to the occasion. So was Rosa Parks. Sometimes, at a precise moment in history, all it takes is for one person to stand up. Or sit down.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Milk (24 November 2008)
“American movies are in the midst of a transition period. Some directors place their trust in technology. Spielberg, who is a master of technology, trusts only story and character, and then uses everything else as a workman uses his tools. He makes Minority Report with the new technology; other directors seem to be trying to make their movies from it. This film is such a virtuoso high-wire act, daring so much, achieving it with such grace and skill. Minority Report reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Minority Report (21 June 2002)
“What Charlize Theron achieves in Patty Jenkins' Monster isn't a performance but an embodiment. With courage, art and charity, she empathizes with Aileen Wuornos, a damaged woman who committed seven murders. She does not excuse the murders. She simply asks that we witness the woman's final desperate attempt to be a better person than her fate intended.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Monster (1 January 2004)
“The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2000 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (4 February 2000)
“To see strong acting like this is exhilarating. In a time of flashy directors who slice and dice their films in a dizzy editing rhythm, it is important to remember that films can look and listen and attentively sympathize with their characters. Directors grow great by subtracting, not adding, and Eastwood does nothing for show, everything for effect.”
Roger Ebert (1942–2013) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Review of Mystic River (8 October 2003)