The Death of Film Critic Roger Ebert

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Today’s headlining story of The Chicago Sun Times truly marks the end of an era: the death of beloved film critic Roger Ebert at the age of 70.

Earlier in the week, on his blog, Ebert had professed to struggling with cancer since 2002, and that it had grown considerably worse. He then announced that he would be taking a hiatus from reviewing films for as long as his health required.

But in a moment that Ebert could have chosen to fixate on his impending death—and rightfully so—the critic instead chose to applaud his readers with a sense of graciousness: “Thank you,” the post begins, “However you came to know me, I’m glad you did and thank you for being the best readers any film critic could ask for…I must slow down now, which is why I’m taking what I like to call “a leave of presence.” What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away.”

It is hardly surprising that Ebert chose to define his next move as a “leave of presence.” Could Ebert, a man with over 300 film reviews under his belt, classic and current alike, and one-part of the famed critical duo Ebert & Roeper, ever really lose his presence in the film community? The answer is a resounding, curtain-parting no—not only in regards to his prolific body of work, but also to the degree to which his writing has penetrated our everyday lives.

Ebert’s writing always delivered poignant points, but his style of criticism was also incredibly approachable. We wouldn’t be describing anything, let alone movies, as “two thumbs up/two thumbs down” if Ebert hadn’t pioneered the phrase in his television program Siskel & Ebert (alongside film critic Gene Siskel) in the late 1980s. And it is this blend of accessibility and a nuanced perception that makes his life’s work so important to our cultural heritage.

“If you have to ask what it symbolizes, it didn’t.”—Roger Ebert

Ebert was born in June of 1942 to Walter and Elena Ebert, and grew up under a fairly liberal roof in Urbana, Illinois. His father was an electrician, his mother, a bookkeeper. He cultivated a love of print from an early age and published in neighborhood newspapers, and even a stamp-collector’s newspaper.

He began writing for The Chicago Sun Times in 1967, where he will continue to be remembered and discussed for a career spanning over fifty years behind the publication’s doors.