Roger That, Mr Ebert

“I have noticed that when I am deeply affected emotionally, it is not by sadness so much as by goodness,” Roger Ebert has written. The world’s favourite, and perhaps most influential, film critic has died. As tributes flow in from all parts of the world and thousands of people share their ‘Roger Ebert story’, it is immensely moving to see how many lives he had transformed—or at least touched—in his lifetime. Ebert was one of those rare people who was not satisfied with just actualising his own talents, he was also driven to inspire everyone else around him as well.

I first came to know Ebert through Twitter in 2010. After a battle with cancer and surgery that had removed much of his lower jaw, Ebert had returned to live his life with a new-found strength. He could no longer speak in real life yet his voice was more powerful than ever before. He began to blog, tweet and connect with his readers and new writers on the internet with an urgency that transformed many lives. Roger Ebert was the first film writer to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1975 and the only one with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His tweets had an ebullience and a sense of challenge that attracted over 8,40,000 followers. In a career spanning 46 years, he had been a television personality, a film critic, author, public speaker and mentor.

So what is my Roger Ebert story? Remembering him brings both a deep sigh and a smile to my face. We followed each other on Twitter. Ebert’s remarkable gift was his ability to read stories and he constantly surprised me with his appreciation of what I thought were obscure tweets. His close brush with death had sharpened his desire to share and to expand his world. He asked to read my blog and before I knew it he had shared it with his Twitter followers. I was one of the many people Ebert chose to give his two-thumbs-up approval to. He gave me the confidence not only to write personal stories, but also to share them without inhibition. Roger Ebert led the way by example. My name is Roger, and I am an alcoholic, he wrote in 2009. He had taken his last drink in 1979. He knew the power of sharing his story. He brought the same insights and empathy to his film reviews.

Ebert was a great admirer of Satyajit Ray’s films. “It is like a prayer,” he wrote about the Apu Trilogy, “affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray.” Watching Mahanagar moved him deeply. “I have so much trouble approaching Ray’s films as ‘foreign’. They are not foreign. They are about Indians, and I am not an Indian, but Ray’s characters have more in common with me than I do with the comic-strip characters of Hollywood,” he wrote. “By contrast, Hollywood films with exploding cigarette lighters and gasping starlets and idiot plots are the real ‘foreign’ films.”

Ebert wrote his reviews with a characteristic straightforward style. He wrote in the first person and shared his own experience of watching a film. His analysis of characters and plot sprung from his miraculous gift of being able to read relationships and people. Disappointed with the film Pink Panther 2, Ebert livened up his review with a sudden mention of Aishwarya Rai in the credit roll of the film. “Wait a minute!” he wrote, “Aishwarya Rai Bachchan! That’s India’s Aishwarya Rai! The most beautiful woman in the world!”

Why do we wait for people to die before we will rediscover them? Everyone writing a tribute must feel at some point that it’s a great pity that the person they admire so much will not be reading these words. Yet, the point is to make the legacy more powerful and relevant. To bring the magnificent story of the person who has gone, to readers who will be inspired too. Death has a way of re-illuminating a life. Even though Ebert had been ill, the shock of his passing has shone a giant spotlight on everything he had meant to his audience and his friends in this life. Suddenly I feel surrounded by his presence, not his absence. His words, his wit, his generosity and the smile that made his eyes dance come back with a renewed impact.

Referring to him as the high priest of film, Oliver Stone wrote this about Ebert on Twitter: Roger Ebert—one of the most generous of souls—even when he did not care for a movie, his kiss of death was brushed with compassion.

Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker and columnist. She blogs at http://www.mydaughtersmum.blogspot.in/ and tweets at @natashabadhwar