Awake in the Dark

Ebert, Roger. Awake in the Dark: Forty Years of Reviews, Essays, and Interviews. New York: University of Chicago 2006. Print

First Sentences:

I began my work as a film critic in 1967, although one of the pieces in this book goes back to my days on the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois. 

I had not thought to be a film critic, and indeed had few firm career plans apart from vague notions that I might someday be a political columnist of a professor of English. 


Description:

As a lover of films, finding a go-to reviewer is vital to deciding whether a specific movie will be interesting enough to actually spend time and money to see it. For me, such a reviewer needs to have insight, humor, quality writing, and no fear to tell it like the movie is, whether good or bad. Of course, my personal go-to reviewer for many years has been Roger Ebert. 

The task of every movie is to try to change how you feel and think during its running time. That it is not important to have a "good time" but very important not to have your time wasted....A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is .... about the way it considers its subject matter, 

The best of his writing for the Chicago Sun Times (and a few other outlets) are gathered in

Awake in the Dark. There are 91 reviews here (yes, I counted them), divided into categories of "Interviews and Profiles," "The Best," "Foreign Films," "Documentaries,"  and "Overlooked and Underrated." Ebert includes introductions for each category, along with extra essays on "Think Pieces," writing about film criticism, and even his piece "On the Meaning of Life ...and Movies." 

There is also some autobiographical information on his youth growing up in Champaign-Urbana, sneaking into the only movie theater in town, and his first reviews for the University of Chicago student newspaper. Ebert even throws in some history of moving pictures from the Lumiere brothers and George Melies, to the first film of a train arriving in a Paris station which caused audiences "to dive out of the way." 

To see three movies during a routine workday or thirty movies a week at a film festival is a good job to have.

Artists whom Ebert interviewed range from Warren Beatty to Ingmar Bergman to Meryl Streep to Spike Lee. Awake in the Dark provides Ebert's list of his top ten movies from every year from 1967 - 2005, then offers his review of the Number One movie from his list for each year. These reviews start with Bonnie and Clyde (1967) through Sophie's Choice (1982), to Do the Right Thing (1989), to Crash (2005). 

What makes these insightful reviews so interesting to me is that they were published as the movie was first released. His observations are the first look offered to potential audiences for such films as Five Easy Pieces, Amadeus, Fargo, Being John Malkovich, and Cries and Whispers. It's easy to see a movie years after its release and judge it to be a classic. Ebert is able to recognize a golden film as soon as he views it in the screening room, and shares why he knows it will be a classic for future movie-goers.

If the magical elements in a movie -- story, director, actors -- are assembled for magical reasons -- to delight, to move, to astound -- then something good often results. But when they are assembled simply as a "package," as a formula to suck in the customers, they are good only if a miracle happens.

If you can't find something here you are curious to read Ebert's opinions on, you can't possibly call yourself a film enthusiast. Personally, I loved every review/essay/commentary Ebert included in this fine collection. He introduced me to movies I had never heard of, helped me understand films I didn't get or like the first time I viewed them, and reinforced the good impressions I had for several of my favorite movies.

Pick it up, flip through it to a favorite (or hated) movie and get his insight on what makes that film worthwhile. You won't be sorry.

And by the way, if you are looking for the reviews of movies he didn't like, be sure to read, I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie. Here he again demonstrates his command of words and films to describe the worst of this field in extremely clever, deflating ways. You cannot help but smile at such reviews as:

Dear God is the kind of movie where you walk out repeating the title, but not with a smile.

Happy reading. 

Fred

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Kael, Pauline. I Lost It at the Movies.   

One of the definitive voices among film reviewers, Kael wrote for the New Yorker for years. This book compiles some of her best work and captures her discerning, often caustic voice that still reflect her overall love of movies.