Life Itself (Steve James, 2014): USA

Reviewed by Karin Eriksson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2015.

I had absolutely no expectations at all when I saw this movie. I was blown away. This is a documentary about the life of Roger Ebert. He was a film critic and wrote for all his life. this documentary showed pictures from all of his life, from early childhood, to adulthood. It was narrated by Steven Stanton but spoken as if it was Roger himself. The documentary basically told the story of Roger Ebert from beginning to end. Roger had cancer and had lost his jaw and he couldn’t eat or speak so he had created a blog to be heard that way and it was very successful. Roger seemed very cheerful and always witty despite his condition and I was amazed by his energy and spirit. After we saw the movie at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Roger’s wife, Chaz came and talked to the class. She said that the film is based on a memoir from 2011 called “Life Itself”. She said that after Roger died, she took a break and didn’t work on the documentary at all, but soon the universe spoke to her and said “Make this movie now, or it’s never gonna be made”. She didn’t want to film the intimate medical moments, but Roger wanted to show everything, so he filmed those parts when she was out of town. Roger said he didn’t want them to make a movie he didn’t want to see, he said “There’s no reason to make a movie if it’s not gonna be a good one”. Chaz revealed that Roger’s all time favorite movie was Citizen Kane.