Today, as it must to all men, death came to Roger Joseph Ebert.

I have written about him several times on this blog. I'm not sure I've ever written about another critic (book, movie, whatever). Not only was he the most important American movie critic of the last few decades, he was almost certainly the last to be as important as he was. Newspapers aren't as influential as they used to be, and the world of information is much more fragmented now.

But the main thing was how good he was – both in terms of how thoughtful and informed his reviews were, and in terms of how well he wrote them. He identified himself as a newspaperman, not as a film critic. I remember once that he made a very serious point that when he started at the Sun-Times as a teenager, he was a newspaperman, not an intern.

Not that I always agreed with him. Part of my review of Ghost Dog was devoted to disagreeing with his interpretation of the film (he liked it, but I don't think he understood it). He was horrified by Kick-Ass, and I thought he missed the point there, too (I will write about that soon). And I think he was wrong about 3D, as I talked about here.

But I always read what he wrote, and when I heard about a new movie and wanted to decide whether I should see it, his review was the first I'd read. And he was right about Robert Altman, and Let the Right One In, and Stagecoach, and many, many more. And about Avatar and Hugo, which he loved even though they were in 3D.

Because that was he thing – he never sounded like he was proclaiming film judgments from on top of a mountain. His reviews always seemed like the start of a conversation (or, if necessary, an argument). This is why the TV show with Gene Siskel (in all of its various forms) was such a natural platform for him.

One thing I'd recommend in particular? No matter how many times you've seen Citizen Kane (which I quote up at the top there), get the DVD with Roger Ebert's commentary track. You'll learn some things.

To paraphrase what I wrote when Rober Altman died: It's too bad there won't be any more words, but there are a hell of a lot to look back on and re-read and learn from (and disagree with). Going out as he did, after a long life doing what he wanted, and doing it as well as anybody ever has, that's the best deal any of us can hope for.

From the Chicago Sun-Times (of course):

"Roger Ebert dead at 70 after battle with cancer"

"If there were a Mount Rushmore of movie critics, we’d start with Roger Ebert"

"A statement from Chaz Ebert"

Later:

From the Chicago Tribune:

"Farewell to a generous colleague and friend" (A wonderful story of Ebert teaching the novice critic from his rival paper how to navigate the complexities of the Cannes Film Festival.)

From the AV Club (I think of them as being an Internet-only phenomenon, but of course they are located in Chicago and many of them knew Ebert, at least casually):

"What did Roger Ebert mean to you?"

"Some thoughts on the death of Roger Ebert, a man who meant a lot to us"

Even later:

I wrote this as a comment to the excellent post "Goodbye Roger Ebert" over at The Best Picture Project:

It's sort of too bad that he's so associated wih the thumbs-up/thumbs-down thing, because that's really the opposite of how he reviewed movies. Yesterday I happened to read the Wikipedia entry for Dr. T. and the Women (a minor Robert Altman movie) and at the end it linked to Ebert's review. I clicked through to read it (I'd read it before, but didn't remember what he'd said): http://tinyurl.com/ctgjbkc. It's not a great movie (I'm an Altman fanatic, and it's nowhere near my top ten list), but Ebert really thinks about it, bringing out specifics about the film and also more general points (including that Altman was "more interested in women than any other great director, with the exception of Ingmar Bergman" – which is a very provocative thought). He really gets into the acusations of sexism against the film. And this was just a routine review of a fairly non-exceptional film.

Roger Ebert is one of my favorite movie critics, and his blog (which is often about subjects other than movies) is always interesting. But I have noticed recently that he has taken to making some pretty flat statements of fact (of the "I said it and that settles it" variety).

• One – which got a lot of response, as you can imagine – was that video games are not and can never be art.
• A recent review began, "No Strings Attached poses the question: Is it possible to regularly have sex with someone and not run a risk of falling in love? The answer is yes. Now that we have that settled..."
• He has also asserted that movies were better when they showed more casual nudity (partly because there are actually some situations in life when people really do take their clothes off, but mostly because he likes to look at bare breasts whenever possible).

I think he likes getting the reactions, and he enjoys being at a point where he's old, he's respected, he's sick, and he doesn't feel like censoring himself anymore.

His most recent flat statement of fact was here, where he said that 3D can never work in movies ("Why 3D doesn't work and never will. Case closed."). I have tremendous respect for Ebert and certainly for Walter Murch, but I have my doubts about the assertion. What is the line about when somebody old and very experienced in a certain field tells you that something will happen in that field, it probably will; but if they say something is impossible, they're probably wrong. (I do have to figure out where that comes from.)

I did find it interesting that the very things they cite about the eye and the brain to support the theory that 3D can't ever work are the very same things that Paul Anderson (writer/director of Resident Evil: Afterlife) has talked about as the things you have to keep in mind when writing and directing 3D movies. But from his point of view they're not obstacles, they're just the factors that need to shape your story and how you direct it.

From Anderson's point of view, what doesn't work is "dimensionalizing" a movie (taking a 2D movie and converting it to 3D after the fact). If you haven't planned it for 3D from the beginning, if you didn't have that in mind from the script stage, then you're going to write a movie that will give the audiences the headaches that Murch and Ebert predict.

Daniel Engber at Slate talks about this issue here, and he brings up a good example I hadn't though of. I saw Dial M for Murder at least once in 2D and thought it was entertaining but minor Hitchcock, very stagy. Then I saw it in 3D and completely revised my opinion. It is perhaps not quite Hitchcock's best, but it is only a notch below the top. Everything in it was designed for 3D, and in 3D it all comes together. In fact, the showing where I saw it also featured a Three Stooges short in 3D, and the double-bill pretty clearly illustrated "3D as gimmick" (things poking out of the screen every few seconds) compared to "3D as a tool to create art."

I haven't seen Dial M for Murder since then, in fact, because I have about as much desire to see it in 2D as I have to see The Searchers in black and white, or to watch To Have and Have Not as a silent movie.

It would be interesting to read an exchange of ideas on the subject of 3D between Ebert and Anderson, but that would never happen. Roger Ebert hates the Resident Evil movies (he doesn't even review them any more), and besides, he's settled the question. The case is closed.

Oh, and I have no idea whether video games can be art, but I did write about the interactivity question here.