The idea, I told her, was that the critic’s great calling — beyond reviewing movies and putting them in a wider context — was to stir the reader’s interest in learning more, and in so doing, deepen the relationship between the medium and its audience.
When you read Roger, you wanted to learn more. More about that director. More about that actor or screenwriter. More about the genre that the film exemplified. More about the nation whose culture birthed the people who made the film. More, more, more.
“How did Roger do that?” she asked. These kids with their reasonable follow-up questions.
I told her that while Roger could hold his own in a discussion with film academics and theorists, and had been known to spend several days breaking down particular films scene by scene before an audience, he never wrote his reviews in a way that made it seem as though the main point was to prove how smart he was, or to position himself in relation to other critics.
He built the core of his reviews around values or emotions, often both. His writing rarely failed to ask, What does this movie say about its subject, and about life? How did it make me feel, and how did it make me feel that way?
Some critics think these aren’t serious questions. Roger knew otherwise.
From here, by Matt Zoller Seitz as he takes over as editor of RogerEbert.com. Things I should always endeavor to remember.
