Watching “Dead Poets
Society” –- the Peter Weir-directed classic with Robin Williams as a liberal teacher
at a strict conservative boy’s school -- and “Life Itself” – a documentary
about Roger Ebert’s impact on film and family -- back to back is crushing, and
ironic.
These films are oddly, wildly, surprisingly linked. Both men were and
remain major film-world touchstones in my life, Williams as performer and Ebert
as critic and writer. They died far too soon, Williams from suicide after a
life of depression, addiction, and finally disease, and Ebert after a long,
public and astoundingly courageous battle cancer.
Also note this: Ebert hated
“Dead Poets,” and I had no idea until I Googled his review after “Dead” was
watched, before “Life” was viewed.
I wondered what made a guy tick who would
hate that film, and then learned just that as “Life” –- directed by Steve James
–- lays out not just Ebert’s bio details, but his way of thinking, what he
wanted from a film, or life, or finally love at age 50 when he married. And,
damn it, to hear Ebert’s words spoken aloud, and his one film, “Beyond the
Valley of the Dolls,” detailed to the extreme, the man was a poet, genius,
demanding, argumentative, and cold, too.
Especially to fellow critic and TV partner,
Gene Siskel, another man taken too soon. I digress because I still wrap my head
around these two films seen so close together. (Pure timing, but what timing.) “Society”
– in my book -- is a classic not from my youth when it came out, but even now.
(I know current college students who are fans, teary eyed as they talk about
it.)
Williams is John Keaton, a 40-ish English teacher who arrives at his New
England alma mater prep high school, taking over for one of the ancient
teachers who has died. All of the teachers are ancient, guardians of the white
master class that was once American capitalism. This is the 1950s. Keating
insists his students destroy the intro of their poetry textbooks, and not to
learn poetry, but to experience it, live it.
Keating further proclaims the
glory of Carpe Diem -– Seize the Day -– to his charges. His energy of course
rattles the boys -– among them Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh
Charles –- and they take that energy to every waking decision, bucking their
strict unloving parents obsessed with tradition, money, and name.
None of these
boys had ever *thought* to question their elders. Now they are. One to a tragic
end. But is that Keating’s fault? Weir certainly stacks the deck: Keating is a
saint, yes, a flat angelic saint, even if we as the audience love him and boo
the cruel, unsparing fathers (Kurtwood Smith among them).
So, yes, “Poets” may
be simple -– Ebert hated its simple approach –- but need every coming of age
story be complicated? It’s a simply tale, beautifully told. I love the students
sneaking out in winter and the finale that once left the viewer bursting with
pride, but now carries a devastating coda: Out inspirations, our captains, all die,
some of them because life’s hardships can even overwhelm them. How do we carry
on?
As with Keating’s roar to seize the day and break free, Ebert went by his
own instinct and his own drum and could never be pinned down. This is the man
who famously trashed Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in the face of universal praise.
Respect had to be paid. Debate was out. Ebert was a master of argument. “Life”
is based on the short-story memoir by Ebert.
Here’s the thing about “Life
Itself” – it’s no lightweight love letter about a film critic served up to
please like-minded film critics and fanatics. Geeks such as myself.
Early on
Ebert -– in a hospital bed and clearly weeks away from succumbing –- acknowledges
he is dying to the camera, alone, and then later before his wife, Chazz, who
refuses to believe this “scene” played out live in a hospital room, cameras on.
She insists Roger can fight on. He knows he cannot.
That’s one of the
beautiful, shocking emotionally scalding punches in this movie, Ebert upfront
says this is *his* film and though he won’t live to see it, he will tell it as
he sees fit. He shuts James down. James complies.
The hospital scenes are
grueling, Ebert’s brief return home a clash of wills as he refuses to attempt
stairs, and his last typed public words –- “I can’t” –- are heartbreaking. Those
are words he seemed never to utter before, a fat kid from suburban Illinois who
was no arm chair critic, but a man who loved film, and got into the business,
and helped champion the likes of Scorsese, and as the “Raging Bull” director
tells, once dissuaded him from suicide with a phone call.
More so, “Life” is
about Ebert’s finding of familial love, marrying into a large family of children
and grandchildren, and seeing Roger out of the theater and walking a grade
schooler around London, wow, that’s life. Perfect.
Dead: A- Life: A
