Timeless sports docu Hoop Dreams was famously one of Roger Ebert’s favorite films. It’s fitting, then, that its director, Steve James, is the man behind Life Itself, a stirring collection of memories from Roger and his loved ones woven together to give us one final, lasting memory of arguably the most influential film critic of all time. Tracing Roger’s life from his days as a young newspaper editor to his last days on earth, when he’d lost his ability to speak, the film pulls no punches, highlighting not just the beauty of the man’s life, but the conflict and suffering that emboldened his character.

James spoke with us recently about he and Roger avoiding the route of hagiography, using Roger’s memoir as a key reference throughout filming, voice actor Stephen Stanton, who portrays Roger in the film, he and Roger’s chilling final email exchange, and more.

The film is very funny at times, but there’s also often a lot of pain involved. This isn’t a hagiography. How important was that to you and Roger?
Steve: It was very important to both of us. Not that I expected to, but if I had read his memoir and felt, “I don’t really like this guy and I don’t respect him” I probably wouldn’t have made the movie. I’m not a filmmaker that would be interested in telling his story as some kind of exposé. At the same time, I wasn’t interested in telling his story as just a tribute. His memoir, being as candid as it was, was a good signal to me that he wasn’t interested in that either, and that certainly proved to be the case. Roger prized complexity, honesty, and intimacy in the films he loved, especially the documentaries. It’s something I’ve tried to do in my career, and this film is no exception.

Did you use Roger’s memoir for reference quite a bit during filming?
Steve: Absolutely. It’s based on the memoir, and for good reason. I thought it was a terrific piece of writing. The idea of basing it on the memoir made all the sense in the world to me, so it’s the primary text that serves the film. It serves the film in terms of content, of course, but it also serves it in terms of storytelling. In the book, he’s very much looking back on his life from the vantage point of the present when he’s been through a lot and he can no longer speak. By the end of the book, he’s anticipating death. When we started the film, we in no way thought that he wasn’t going to survive–that wasn’t the reason we made the film–but that’s what happened. The memoir is the key guiding text for the film, but we do deviate from it. One way is that, the film isn’t just Roger’s point of view of his life; it’s other people’s point of view as well. We also dig much deeper into the Siskel & Ebert show than he does in the memoir, because I think it’s such an important, key part of how we came to know Roger, how he was defined, and how he made an impact on film criticism.

There’s a Siskel & Ebert outtakes clip online that’s been one of my Youtube treasures for years now. It’s incredible footage, and I like the way you implement them in the film. You frame them with interviews that further illuminate the different colors and dynamics of their relationship over the years.
Steve: I’d seen those clips before, too. They weren’t original to the film, but I like to think that we give them a new context that made them resonate more deeply in terms of who these guys were, how they viewed each other, and the deep competitiveness they felt. But also, the second set of clips where you see them bonding over the fact that Gene’s a Jew and Roger’s Catholic…I found those illuminating as well. They showed that fundamental connection they made as well. It wasn’t all vitriol and conflict; there was a bond between them, too.

Stephen Stanton adds a lot to the film.
Steve: He added a whole other dimension of intimacy. One of the problems when we were putting the film together and showing it to colleagues was that we were using the CD version of the book for the editing. I always imagined we’d replace that with someone who sounded more like Roger, but it was very interesting when we showed it to people, because they would say, “I really wish it showed more of Roger’s writing.” I’d say, “There’s tons of Roger’s writing in the movie. All that stuff being read for the memoir is his writing!” When we found Stephen Stanton, this amazing voice actor who was able to impersonate Roger to the degree he did, it really helped to reinforce that these are Roger’s words.

It’s chilling at first to hear Stephen’s voice mimicking Roger’s, but after a while it all melts away and you forget it’s not Roger speaking.
Steve: That’s what I want. I want you to forget. You’d be amazed at how many people don’t even notice that it’s not Roger. I’m a documentary guy, so I didn’t want to fool people: At one point in the movie, “Roger” says, “When I lost my ability to speak…”. That flies right over people’s heads and they go, “That wasn’t Roger?” at the end of the film. I’m talking about critics, film lovers…Stephen so embodies Roger and they are his words, so it just flies by people, which I’m happy about, frankly.

There are points in the film where you superimpose text of Roger’s critique over the imagery of the film he’s criticizing. It’s a beautiful technique.
Steve: Thank you. I wanted to find a way to feature his criticism and also put it in the context of the films that had inspired such writing. I didn’t want to just have him speak the words; I wanted to put them on the screen so that you could admire the written words.

Have you spoken to Roger’s contemporaries about the film and how he impacted their lives and work?
Steve: I haven’t spoken to many of them directly, but if you read the reviews of the film so far, you’ll see that connection. Many of them write about it in some fashion in reviewing the movie. There’s something about Roger that compels people to want to share something personal about their connection to him. In terms of his contemporaries, critics might tell stories about him. But in the case of younger writers, they’ll talk about how he inspired them, either through his writing or the show. It’s remarkable how many people are moved to speak personally about him in reviewing the film.

Roger fully embraced the digital age late in life, and the film does this as well in many ways. You display several email exchanges between you and Roger on screen several times.
Steve: The decision to put my email exchanges in the film was one that was made in the wake of his death. The emailing was initially a very practical way to conduct an ongoing interview with him that we would then hope to record. The way Roger would do interviews in the years since he lost his ability to speak was, he’d ask for people to give him questions in advance so that he could type up answers. If you sat there filming and waited for him to type up an answer and play it back, it would take forever. It would be hard on him. When he died, the emails loomed way more important in the relationship between me and him and the storytelling. Our last series of exchanges where he’s clearly is declining and can’t bring himself to really respond was so poignant and distressing to me that I felt I needed to reflect that in the film.

You didn’t know it at the time, but you got to spend time with Ebert in his final days, which is such a privilege. What was it like being close to him the months leading up to his passing?
Steve: I felt very fortunate. I had a very friendly professional relationship with him over the years. He’d been very kind to me beyond what he did for Hoop Dreams in terms of my other films. I greatly appreciated that. But this was a chance to actually get to know him as a person. I feel lucky to have been with Roger in his last days.

Read our review of Life Itself, now in limited release in U.S. theaters.

Loosely based off the late Roger Ebert’s 2011 memoir Life Itself, director Steve James’ documentary of the same name has released a new poster a month and a half before the movie’s impending release. Director Steve James, who is primarily known for his Oscar-winning documentary Hoop Dreams, spent months with Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz as Roger’s health began to deteriorate. In his film, he speaks candidly with Roger, Chaz, and close friends of Ebert’s on the At The Movies co-host’s esteemed career and deep love for film.

The documentary played to outstanding reviews (read our review) at its Sundance premiere. Many of the reviews were written by critics who openly acknowledged the influence Ebert had on their own lives. Last month Life Itself played at Ebert’s own film festival (Ebertfest) in his home city of Chicago. Life Itself will be available in theaters and on VOD this July 4th. A new poster featuring the late great film critic, can be seen below:

New Poster for Life Itself

I will never forget the day Roger Ebert passed away. As a film critic, I was left with a feeling of dreadful hopelessness as one of the most prominent film critics of all time was no longer with us. As I sulked in my car, the song “A Real Hero” from Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive began to play and brought tears to my eyes. It was purely a coincidence, but nevertheless miraculously appropriate. There are many people who viewed Ebert as a real hero, myself included.

Life Itself follows Ebert’s written memoir of the same name very closely, even displaying on screen what chapter from the book is being discussed. However, Steve James’ documentary is more than just a retelling of the book as it provides new material, making it a great companion piece. The bulk of the supplemental material shows Ebert during his last four months of his life, making it feel like an epilogue of both the book and his life. Because Ebert helped launch James’ career as a filmmaker after declaring his 1994 documentary Hoop Dreams to be the best film of the decade, it makes perfect sense that Steve James would be the documentarian in charge of showing Ebert’s story.

Ebert began as a professional film critic in the late ‘60s after the position was essentially handed to him when the former critic of the Chicago Sun-Times left. Throughout his career, Ebert continuously embraced technology and adapted to the times better than anyone else in the field. Less than ten years later, he began to co-host a weekly television show that skyrocketed his notoriety. Later in life, Ebert became an early adopter of blogging and using Twitter before it became standard platforms for critics. Being technologically-forward proved to be extremely important as he ended up relying on those services to stay vocal after losing the ability to speak due to a complication of his thyroid cancer. It is shown in the documentary that Ebert was eagerly involved with the new responsive design layout of his website, which tragically launched days after he passed away.

It is hard to talk about Ebert’s life without mentioning Gene Siskel. The documentary recalls how the two were basically professional enemies working for two competing newspapers in Chicago when they first met. Even after the two formed a very close-knit friendship, both professionally and personally, they never minced their words with one another. A couple of clips featured in Life Itself show the two verbally assaulting each other; hilarious to witness but it demonstrates how passionate they both were. A statement made in the documentary perfectly sums up their relationship, “They are like Siamese twins joined at the rear.”

Martin Scorsese is another famous filmmaker that Ebert helped bring people’s attention to after he gave a rave review of the 1967 film Who’s That Knocking at My Door. Therefore, it is fitting that Scorsese is listed as an executive producer of the documentary, especially when James captures Scorsese emotionally acknowledging that Ebert and Siskel saved his life during his heavy addiction period. Ebert had considered Scorsese to be the American Fellini, adoring most of his films and eventually writing a book about him. But Ebert maintained a professional relationship with the director, even criticizing the director’s work in The Color of Money. Even if Scorsese didn’t always flat-out agree with Ebert’s opinion, he respected it. More than anything, it demonstrated how unbiased Ebert could be even towards someone he greatly admired—a quality all journalists should strive to have.

Life Itself utilizes the voice talent of Stephen Stanton for the scenes in which Ebert is retelling stories from his book. His voice resembles that of Ebert so closely that if you did not remember that the book was written after he lost the ability to speak, you would think it is actually Ebert narrating the documentary. James brilliantly leaves in the computer-generated voice whenever Ebert communicated something new that was not from the book. The decision to use both types of voices for Ebert is as clever as it is functional, doing so helps distinguish Ebert’s earlier thoughts from the present narrative.

James admitted in the Q & A that making a film about the beloved film critic was a daunting task considering the film would obviously be assessed by the critical crowd. It doesn’t help that James has typically featured unknown non-celebrities in his past projects. For example, Hoop Dreams features a couple of ordinary inner-city teenagers who were unknown to people outside of Chicago high school basketball. This, however, may be why James is the perfect person to direct this film. Interviews featured in Life Itself reveal that deep down Ebert was just a regular Midwesterner, a trait which allowed him to intelligently speak to the common man.

Perhaps the best part about Ebert’s work is that agreeing with his writing wasn’t always necessary in order to appreciate it. He changed the medium of film criticism, but more importantly he opened millions of people’s eyes to great films with effortless insight and knowledge, teaching them how to truly appreciate a film. His universal appeal makes his final days even more crushing.  In the film Ebert intends to answer interview questions from James over email, but due to his worsening health conditions he only responds with, “I can’t.” Although Life Itself is not exactly groundbreaking in terms of documentary filmmaking, it serves as a superb tribute that will leave Roger Ebert fans delighted and inspired. Thumbs Up.