In 1994,
Roger Ebert wrote about Steve James’ “Hoop Dreams”—“A film like “Hoop Dreams”
is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and make us think in new
ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched
life itself.” He had no idea that, 20 years later, the director of that film
would be the filmmaker behind the movie based on Roger’s memoir, titled with
the same phrase that Roger used to describe “Hoop Dreams”—“Life Itself.” The
director sat down for an interview in New York City last month.
“Life itself” opens on July 4th
in several markets, including here in NYC, and on iTunes and Video on Demand.
Is this the version that played at Cannes or the one that played at Sundance?
This is the
Cannes version. It basically has a 4-minute section devoted to Roger’s 40-year
history of going to Cannes. I think it’s a really great addition to it, because
it’s not just fun, although it has a lot of laughs in it. It’s also insightful,
because it helps you understand even more why Gene was afraid Roger would leave
him behind. Roger did all these Cannes things by himself—he wrote all these
pieces from Cannes—and he loved doing it.
I wonder why Gene didn’t go with Roger.
Gene didn’t
like going to festivals. I don’t know about his actual Cannes history, but I
don’t believe he went there many times. Roger, of course, religiously went to
Sundance, Telluride, Toronto and Cannes. Gene’s rationale, as I understand it,
was that he wanted to maintain this distance from the filmmakers. Roger didn’t
have that same concern. I also think they had a different way in which they
engaged with film. Roger lived and breathed it in a way that Gene was proud to
say he didn’t.
Speaking of Cannes, let’s talk about “Life
Itself”’s memorable glitch at the Cannes screening. [Note: The Cannes screening was delayed for over 20 minutes when the
film suddenly stopped.] Roger was fascinated by technology, especially when
it went catastrophically awry. I’m a computer programmer, so Roger and I rarely
corresponded about movies. Instead, he always wanted to know when my software demos
blew up. I had a lot of stories to tell him, because demos always explode. I
was wondering if you knew Roger dug when technology went on the fritz, and if
so, did that cross your mind when the Cannes screening went “pffft!”
[Laughs] I
didn’t know that! I did think about his reaction after the fact—I’m sure Chaz
thought about it during the glitch—and I think, because he loved Cannes so
much, that he would have initially been amused by it. Because it went out a minute
after the Cannes footage…
…as if it were planned.
Yes! And, it
actually happened—pure coincidence—when a guy got up and left. I don’t think he
left due to indignity or whatever. He probably had something else to do. He
walked out at the front of the theater, and as soon as he walked in front of
the screen, the movie went off.
Like he’d kicked out the plug.
That was my
first reaction! “Is the plug down there? What the hell?” I think Roger would
have been amused by the timing. I was kind of amused at first. And the lights
came up immediately, so I thought “oh, they’re dealing with it.” I didn’t know
that [the theater] was on a system, so when the screen went off, the lights
were set to automatically come up. There was nobody up there in the booth. That
part would have made Roger quite angry. He would have cut somebody a new one
for that.
Chaz was
quick-thinking. She dragged me down to the stage and we did this impromptu
Q&A. And all the time during the Q&A, I’m looking up in the booth and I
see nothing going on. And we have people out looking for someone. So, I think
at that point, Roger would have been infuriated.
It would have made for a great Cannes
dispatch from him.
It would
have made for an amazing article! At Cannes, of all festivals! But the way it
ended—about half of the audience remained with us until the end–the crowd gave
us one of the sweetest, most heartfelt ovations I’ve ever experienced at a
movie I’ve made. It was really touching, as if we’d all been through something
together.
“Life Itself” has been screened all over
the world. I’ve been to three screenings in the U.S. so far. It just played AFI
Docs on Saturday night, alongside a documentary about General Tso’s Chicken.
I saw that
in the listings.
I was curious about that documentary, but
it was sold out so I didn’t make the trek down to D.C. I shouldn’t be talking
about somebody else’s movie at your interview, though!
[Laughs]
You mentioned Cannes, but is there a
particular screening that resonated with you, that really stuck with you as the
quintessential screening of Life Itself?
I think the
quintessential screening, without doubt, would be the Ebertfest screening. I
mean, 1,200 people were there celebrating Roger.
You know, in
the process of making this film, we’d do these little impromptu test screenings
where we’d gather 20 or 30 people over at Kartemquin to help us make the film
clearer, or to see what’s working/not working. We discovered early on in those
screenings how much laughter there was going to be in this movie. There were a
lot of laugh-out-loud moments. So we began to tweak the timings around the
moments we knew would generate real laughs, so that there was enough space [for
them]. Someone might say something in the film that was of no great
consequence, so if you missed it, it was no big deal. But we noticed that some
important things were being missed because of laughter. So we calibrated this
for the audience, which you need to do when you have the luxury of this kind of
response.
At
Ebertfest, people were missing stuff because there were waves of laughter that
kept on going. But here it really didn’t matter. It went from this raucous
laughter to dead silence, and sniffling, and emotion.
And then,
for it to be in hometown, and at his festival. All of that made it the most special
screening.
But I’d have
to give a second-place shout-out to the Sundance premiere screening. Because
I’ve had films at Sundance before, but that was the best screening I ever had.
The audience response was like a mini-version of Ebertfest’s response. The
audience was with it from the first frame to the last, and it felt like people
were there to celebrate Roger and to mourn him.
All your films are superbly edited. What I
find fascinating about them is that they have the arc of the best fiction,
which is impressive as you have no control over reality; you have to play the
hand that you’re dealt. How do you approach that? With Roger’s book, you had
kind of a blueprint for “Life Itself.”
Did that make your approach any different than, say “Hoop Dreams” or
“The Interrupters?”
It did. It
definitely made a difference. I really love the way Roger structured the book.
It is a man looking back on his life from this vantage point of “here I am now.
I can no longer speak or eat, and my life is very different.” And there is this
flood of memories. Yet it is informed by life in the present, which he comes back
to from time to time. The book is largely linear but not exclusively. I love
that about the book.
And so I
thought that was a great template, structurally, for approaching the movie. It
meant following Roger in the present, to see what his daily life is now. And
I’m always fascinated with that anyway, because even if it’s not some big
momentous thing going on, just witnessing people in their daily lives can be
quite revealing.
So in that
sense, the present-day part is more like what I’m used to in my films, which is
to follow people. And, as in true in my other films, what happened was
unexpected. When we started filming, we did not expect Roger to pass away in
four months. And so, that part of the film took on a life of its own, and it
made the film about more than what I’d set out to make it. It also made it a
film about “how do you die, and how do you do it with courage, with dignity and
with humor?”
Roger had a morbid sense of humor, as Chaz
points out in the movie. He seems to be enjoying this, giving it the thumbs-up
at one point.
Yeah. He
says “what kind of third act would it be if I just died suddenly?” I thought,
“what an amazing thing for him to say.” One moment I really like is when I say “it
makes for a better story” and he gives me this approving look. And it’s not
facile. It’s not shallow to me at all. It’s kind of the way he lived his life.
He embraced it all, and this part is just another act.
OK,
it’s time for the grad school question. I wrote this one down.
[Laughs]
To me, your films focus on how people
impact a particular system and vice versa. For example, The Interrupters step
in to challenge and diffuse situations that cyclically would lead to violence.
In “Hoop Dreams,” the system of basketball, as a means to a better life outside
a neighborhood not unlike my own growing up, affects Arthur and William
profoundly. In “Life Itself,” Roger the critic throws a monkey wrench into the
critical thought process that says an emotional response to a movie is invalid.
There’s kind of a cybernetic approach to your subjects. Is that a conscious
decision on your part, or is this merely something I read into your films
because this is the “grad school question”?
This is my
favorite question of the day so far.
So I guess I actually got something out
of going to grad school.
[Laughs] You
know, what I’ve found out over the years is that I don’t generally set out to
do that. With “Hoop Dreams,” I set out to do a film about what basketball means
to young people like Arthur and William. That was the original impetus. And not
necessarily young kids, but African-American ball players whom I’d had as
teammates, played pick-up ball with. As much as I’d loved the dream [of
basketball success], and I felt in my own whitebread way that I’d had the dream
as strong as one could have it. But I also knew that it wasn’t the same for me
as it was for some of the African-American teammates I’d had, or players who
came from where you came from, for example. And so I wanted to understand that
better.
I didn’t know
Arthur and William at this point. But I didn’t set out to do an expose on the
business of basketball and how the system reaches down. I really wanted it to
be more of a “why does this game mean so much?” And I knew it would take us
into places like poverty and lack of opportunity and social issues. But that
wasn’t what hooked me initially. It was on a more personal level of why the
game meant so much, why it is so important, and to go on that journey.
With “The
Interrupters,” I read Alex Kotlowitz’s article, and what we both were taken
with is how these individuals who once were part of the problem were now trying
to fix something that, in their own way, they had created. And they’re trying
to save themselves, not just save other people. And so it was very personal,
and that was the hook.
And so over
the years, I’ve found that I am drawn to personal stories that resonate for me
in various ways. And what I’ve found is the reason why they resonate with me.
They have something larger to say to us about the world we live in. They have
something larger to say about those systems, or about race, or about class, or
about criminal justice. In the case of a film like “Stevie,” when a person
commits the crime that he did, do we as a society just throw them away, or do
we try to save them? What is our obligation to them? But I don’t interview a bunch of experts to
weigh in or to pontificate. I try to get at these things through the
individual’s stories.
With Roger’s
story, I didn’t know what I originally set out to do. I was just taken by his
extraordinary life, and that he had had this incredible life journey that
informed the way in which he wrote film criticism and that shaped the type of
critic he was. If he hadn’t had this fascinating, incredible life journey, I
probably wouldn’t have made the film despite admiring him as a film critic.
The personal stories angle kind of leads to
my next question. You have a scene with Ava DuVernay, with whom I was on a
panel last year at the Off Plus Camera Film Festival in Poland—of all places!
She talks about how she entrusted her African-American themed film, “I Will
Follow,” to Roger to spread the word about it, much like “Hoop Dreams” was in a
way entrusted to Roger as well. I was glad you kept that scene in “Life Itself,”
because it raises an interesting notion about whose stories get told in the
cinema, and whether those stories get recognized or seen by audiences. Siskel
and Ebert were always pointing out these little films on their show, and Roger
carried the torch of the under-seen little film until he passed, both in his
reviews and on social media. Do you think that social media has picked up
Roger’s mission of pointing out these films?
Well I’m no
expert on social media because I’m not even on Twitter, fortunately or
unfortunately.
Fortunately.
I went on
Twitter literally for two minutes. I signed up after being browbeaten by the
Twitter king at Kartemquin. I signed up, got one follower and said “I can’t do
this” and cancelled the account. But I do think there’s an important role for
social media. I don’t think it rises to the level of Roger when it comes to
promoting films, and Roger as you know became a master at using social media.
Yeah. He twisted my arm and made me use it.
Said I should use it for “shameless self-promotion.”
Did he
really? Well, I think he understood something about the contemporary world and
contemporary technology, and the disconnect that can happen between us, and
social media can be a bastardized version of that in some ways. But it can also
be a very powerful and positive influence as well. It removes the gatekeepers.
When Hoop Dreams came out 20 years ago, we were beholden to a distributor that
was willing to spend a significant amount of money to get it out there. We were
beholden to the traditional press outlets to embrace the film and write about
it, otherwise no one would go see it or even hear about it. And that’s not true
anymore.
Three years
ago, “The Interrupters” made a perfect example. Here was a film where no money was
spent putting the word out there. Yet thanks to social media, to Facebook and
Twitter, to people writing about it on their blogs and saying “you should see
this.” Because of all that, it played in 75 markets with no money spent. So I
think there’s much to be said about social media…even if I’m not on Twitter!
Stay off it! One last question: Roger
always beat up the MPAA for inexplicably and hypocritically applying their
ratings. I try to carry the torch for this on RogerEbert.com. “Life Itself” is rated
R, and I had to rack my brain to figure out why. Did you expect it? And what do
you think Roger would have thought of this?
Roger wouldn’t
have liked it. It’s because of a shot of bare breasts and a few uses of the
word “fuck.” It’s the way the MPAA is. I thought, for a minute, “should we put
up a big fight over this?” I realized I just don’t have the energy and time to
do it. But if you wanted to write about it, that would be a beautiful thing.
Because it is ridiculous.
It is ridiculous. So, kids, sneak into
“Life Itself!”
That’ll give
us some cachet!
