Roger Ebert
He is from Urbana, and he never really left. Roger Ebert’s mark on this community is permanent. The famed film critic of more than 45 years and former editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini could stipulate the success or demise of a movie with a simple thumbs-up or -down. But what he did for films, for his home in Champaign-Urbana, for his friends and colleagues, for The Daily Illini and for everyone who reached out to him was anything but simple. It was profound. The Chicago Sun-Times announced his death Thursday afternoon, following Ebert’s 11-year battle with cancer, which left him without a voice but never without words. Ebert, 70, was the first to win a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism and his reviews were read and respected by the millions that followed him. Even though he found his success in Chicago, there was always a part of him that remained in Champaign-Urbana. This editorial continues on page 6A.
THE DAILY ILLINI A Student Newspaper Serving Illini for Over a Century
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URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, IILLINOIS, FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013
NUMBER 132
‘I’ll see you at the movies’ BY DARSHAN PATEL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Roger Ebert was more than a film critic. He was a journalist and a pioneer of his time. He found new ways to tell his stories: through his television show, through his books, through his website and through social media. He endured so much through the years. He battled thyroid and salivary gland cancer and lost his voice and lost a part of his jaw. His cancer resurfaced after a hip fracture late last year. Yet his writing persevered, and he never missed a beat as a beloved figure in the film industry. He confronted his long and laborious battle with cancer publicly. And just days ear-
lier, he said goodbye in what his friends call a fitting way: through his intellectual, creative words. “So on this day of reflection I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies,” Ebert wrote in his blog post, announcing he was taking a “leave of presence.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic died Thursday at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, announced the Chicago Sun-Times, where he had been working for over four decades. He was 70. He was sceduled to attend his annual film festival, Ebertfest, which will still be held later this month. Ebert’s death was met with
sadness from the ChampaignUrbana community, a place where he grew up and called home. “Roger Ebert was a dear friend to this campus and a great ambassador for the University throughout his career,” Chancellor Phyllis Wise said in a statement. “He truly changed the way we talk about film and how we think about art and media. Thanks to Roger, none of us will ever see a movie in the same way again.” Ebert was born on June 18, 1942, in Urbana and earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism from the University. But his years at The Daily Illini defined his career, his long-time friends said in the
wake of his death Thursday. This year marks the 50th anniversary in his position as editor-in-chief, a role that Ebert called “the highlight of his career,” said Michael David Smith, who was the editor-in-chief in 1999 — the same year of Ebert’s inaugural film festival. Ebert’s moment might have never come. His father had died during his freshman year at the University, and he had offered to drop out of the University to join the workforce to help his family, his mother later told Betsy Hendrick, a friend who met Ebert while they were both working at The News-Gazette. “She wouldn’t hear of it,”
Hendrick said. Ebert was in high school then, while Hendrick was attending college. While he was editor-inchief, Ebert penned a column after John F. Kennedy’s assassination — arguably one of his greatest works as a college student — which was republished in the Illini Media’s 100th anniversary edition. “We all rushed to The Daily Illini (after Kennedy was assassinated). Everyone who worked for the paper came running down. Of course the bells were going off in the AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International) machines, signaling a major story. And Roger was there front and center. ... He knew
what to do,” said William Nack, who succeeded Ebert as editor-in-chief. After graduating, he spent a year studying in Cape Town, South Africa. He then went on to be a world-renowned critic, whose “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” became an icon for his reviews and his TV shows, which he hosted first with Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel and then with colleague Richard Roeper. In 1975, he became the first to earn a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. But his most important honor was
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Ars Gratia ... Editor’s Note: The following column was first published on October 4, 1961, in The Daily Illini and was one of Roger Ebert’s first published movie reviews. There is in “La Dolce Vita” a great deal to be puzzled about, and a great deal to be impressed by, and perhaps a great deal which we as Americans will never completely understand. Yet it is a fine motion picture. And we have the feeling that even those students who sat through its three hours with a measure of boredom came away convinced that something was there. It is this something, this undefined feeling being hammered at beneath the surface of the film, which gives it power and illumination. And it is this
hidden message which contains the deep and moral indictment of the depravity which “La Dolce Vita” documents. In technical excellence, the film surpasses every production this reviewer has seen, except a few of the Ingmar Bergman classics. Photography and the musical score are together almost as important as the dialogue in conveying the unmistakable attack on “the sweet life.” This attack is also made clear in frequent symbolism, although sometimes the symbolism becomes too obvious to fit into the effortless flow of the total production. For example, in the final scene where merrymakers gather around the grotesque sea monster which represents
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their way of living, and then the protagonist is called by the “good” girl but cannot understand her, the symbolism is very near the surface. Yet this tangible use of symbols might account in part for La Dolce Vita’s fantastic success. Too often the “new wave” fails through symbolism that is simply too subtle for most movie-goers.
Acting Startlingly Realistic The acting itself is startling realistic, and for a very good reason: many of the players are portraying themselves. The greatest surprise – and one of the greatest successes – in the film is the Swedish sex
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Reflections Editor’s Note: The following column was first published on April 22, 1964 and was the last column written by Roger Ebert as editor-inchief of The Daily Illini. Twenty-four hours after this column appears, The Daily Illini will have a new set of editors. The old names will continue to appear in the masthead for a few days, but the transfer of power will have taken place, at least in the minds of our staff members. And so I thought I would use this space today to set down some of the things which have occurred to me during a year of editing this newspaper. The Daily Illini is one of the most remarkable college papers in the nation. It is
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one of the oldest, and one of the very best. For most of its 93 years, it has been one of the pace-setters in demonstrating that complete student editorial freedom can be maintained in a campus newspaper. It is one of the basic duties of each year’s staff to protect and extend The Daily Illini’s editorial freedom, so that this campus will never have to admit that its paper is controlled by the administration, the college of journalism, or any official source.
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Perhaps this campus should be reminded more often that the freedom enjoyed by The Daily Illini is not very common elsewhere. The vast majority of the nation’s
1,200 college newspapers are the mouthpieces of their administrations. Most of the others have various systems of “supervision” which guarantee that nothing embarrassing to the university will appear in the newspaper. Such a system of “supervision” is now in operation at four state colleges in Illinois– but The Daily Illini, which is financially independent and self-supporting, is not affected. This newspaper is part of a fraternity of free college papers. The fraternity is very small. Yet its members read like a list of America’s great college publications. Included are The Michigan
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