Trailer: Roger Ebert in Documentary ‘Life Itself’
Following successful screenings at Sundance and Cannes film festivals, and a successful Indiegogo campaign for funds to complete the film, the documentary Life Itself about world-renown film critic Roger Ebert will be released to theaters (in the US, no release date yet for the UK) and on demand via Magnolia pictures July 4th, and the first trailer is now online.
Featuring interviews with fellow critics like A.O. Scott and filmmakers who Ebert helped champion and became friends with like Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, the film will trace Ebert’s life and professional career, from his early years as a critic, to writing the Russ Meyer cult sensation Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, to his legendary team-up with critic Gene Siskel which made them household names, and then the final, inspiring years of his life following cancer and surgery (the last years he had no jaw and could not speak, but became a force on his blog writing better than he ever had).
The documentary is and directed by Steve James, whose film Hoop Dreams Ebert championed twenty years ago and ultimately named the best film of the 1990’s (I’ll include Ebert talking about that film below; incidentally Scorsese is executive producer on this film). From the look of the trailer, James got some exclusive video of Ebert in his final year, when the documentary was already in production and jumping off from Ebert’s memoir of the same title.
For me, this may be a very emotional viewing as Ebert was a huge inspiration for me as a writer and thinker, and opened me up to see more movies than I can count. But more than that the final years of his life were moving to behold, that he held on with the help of his wife Chaz Ebert and persevered all the way up till his untimely passing last year. It says a lot that Ebert was featured in this year’s Oscars in the tribute to those who’ve passed as the only critic (a rarity anyway).
Here is the trailer. You seeing it? Thumbs up? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @
