The End of an Era

When Gene Siskel died in 1n 1999 at the absurd age of 53, I was stunned and saddened. It affected me as much or more than the death of any public figure in my lifetime. I have often wondered why. I think that the reason is that I began regularly watching Siskel and Ebert's Sneak Previews on PBS when it went into wide syndication in 1978.

I was 22 years old and just beginning to develop some intellectual interests. I had always loved the movies, but Siskel and Ebert allowed me to go beyond merely enjoying film, but to also start thinking about film in a more critical vein. I literally grew up with these guys, watching the various iterations of this show from 1978 until Siskel's death in 1999. 19 years is a long time.

I continued to watch after Ebert continued on with various guest reviewers until he finally settled on Richard Roeper. It was a still a good show, but it always seemed to me that Siskel's untimely death took something out of Ebert. His reviews were never as sharp and incisive as they had been. He even seemed to go a little easy on films he would have savaged in the Siskel and Ebert days.

Sadly, in 1996 Ebert was struck by cancer, just as Siskel had been. However, Ebert's bout with this horrible disease seemed especially cruel. The thyroid and then salivary gland cancer left him disfigured and unable to speak or eat. Clearly, his television days were over. Roeper soldiered on for a couple of years until At the Movies, as it was now called, was cancelled.

Ebert tried to resurrect the show in 2011 by showcasing Christy Lemire and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky in Ebert Presents At the Movies. Ebert himself offered occasional reviews shot tastefully from his office set, using journalist and anchor Bill Kurtis and others to voice the content.

Despite the fact that it was syndicated on PBS, Ebert Presents At the Movies was abandoned after a single season. Apparently, the economics had changed dramatically since the show's heyday in the early 80s. Without external sponsorship, the show was simply too expensive for Ebert to produce. When it left the air Ebert bravely announced that it would return with new sponsors, but the writing was on the wall. The Internet, it seems, killed the economic viability of Siskel and Ebert-type shows. People apparently would rather simply check a numeric score on Rotten Tomatoes or Meta Critic than watch two critics on television discussing the movies of that week. I like those web sites too. I visit them regularly on Friday afternoons as a way of helping me to decide what film I should see that evening.

It's not the same. The biggest joy I got from watching Siskel and Ebert was from comparing their reactions to my own about films I had already seen. I will never forget Ebert's impassioned defense of Apocalypse Now in 1979. Siskel gave the film a thumbs-down, claiming that it fell apart at the end. Ebert argued that the dissolution at the end of the film was an intentional metaphor for the war in Vietnam. Siskel could only smile, and without changing his mind, granted that Ebert gave the film the best defense available. Alas, the economics and technology of the 21st century have seemingly precluded intelligent discussion like this on television. Charlie Rose is one exception that comes to mind, but he has obtained and kept the corporate sponsorship that eluded Roger Ebert.

Ebert died today, succumbing to cancer that had spread to his bones. I was saddened, of course, but it was no surprise. It did not produce the shock I felt when Gene Siskel was cut down in the prime of life. Ebert, at least, made his three score and ten.