by RoninKengo
Roger Ebert’s Last Words, con’t.
[Via Roger Ebert's Journal]
Christy Lemire wrote me: “So, everyone seems pretty moved by the Esquire piece on you, but I’m wondering what you thought about it. It’s so intimate, personal.”
Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? It was also well written, I thought. When I turned to it in the magazine, I got a jolt from the full-page photograph of my jaw drooping. Not a lovely sight. But then I am not a lovely sight, and in a moment I thought, well, what the hell. It’s just as well it’s out there. That’s how I look, after all.
It was an inexplicable instinct that led me to agree when Chris Jones contacted me requesting an interview. The idea of Esquire appealed to me. I did a bunch of interviews for them in the 1970s, when it was the crucible of the New Journalism.
[More]
I found Ebert’s online Journal not long after he started it. It is incredibly addicting. He is such a very good writer. It is obvious why he won a Pulitzer.
He was so much a force as a TV reviewer, though, that we tend to see him visually. He was so good at that, almost playing a part (In fact, one of the few parts of the horror that was Godzilla interesting at all was the fact that the Mayor of New York was named Ebert and he had an assistant called Gene).
But his writing is astonishing and the Web seems to have opened up a path for him to connect with so many people. His is actually one of the few blogs whose comments must be read. Because he will insert himself into the comments, providing insights or pithy responses that add to the overall conversation.
Such as this one. What he says about the Esquire article – which is a very well written example of some of the best that can be seen in magazines and one that makes me mourn the current destructive path so many of them are on – is so human yet so universal. It exposes the real bravery of a man to open up so much of himself to a stranger yet there is no self-congratulatory nature to the post at all.
And it led me to the Interview Ebert wrote in Esquire, the one with Lee F—ing Marvin. I remember that article from when I first read it in 1970!
I was a teenager then, often buying Esquire because it had sexy pictures of ladies and was not kept under the counter like Playboy was, requiring an embarrassing request rather than the simply cash payment Esquire did.
But Esquire, more so than Playboy, had really good, very well written articles. I loved movies and Lee Marvin. (I was young enough to find the Dirty Dozen really fun and to just really appreciate how his turn in Cat Ballou, as both Kid Shaleen and Tim Strawn, made that such an enjoyable movie. Later, in college, I saw him in the Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and the Big Heat and saw that he was the baddest villain ever).
I remember that article but I never knew it was written by Ebert. Outstanding. It is always fun to reconnect with things that were impressive when we were young but now with the perspective of years can really appreciate the original connection in a new light.
I remember that article because I liked Lee Marvin. Now I’ll remember it not only because it was Lee F—-ing Marvin but because it was the work of Ebert.
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