When the Lights Go Down

The passing away last week of Roger Ebert,long-time film critic of the Chicago Sun Times,after a public,heroic struggle with cancer,felt like a full stop. The constant conversation around things that matter the most (and cinema to me is right on top of that list) became instantly dimmer. Because Ebert wrote the way he saw and the way he felt as honestly as a critic can. And as objectively and fairly as a critic can,given that his way of seeing and feeling will always be his and his alone. He saw and observed and thought and then wrote,like all the best critics do,always mindful of what is being critiqued,and always respectful.

My relationship with Roger Ebert before the world turned into a big mouse click was sporadic,because it depended upon when I could lay my hands on a newspaper that carried his film reviews. He was widely syndicated all over the world,but his presence in Indian papers was mostly confined to the odd guest column: the critics whom I zealously followed week after week were those who were more physically accessible the two Richards,Corliss and Schickel of Time magazine,David Ansen,who wrote for Newsweek,Leslie Halliwell who brought out a series of super collections of short,but sharp and literate reviews. And,of course,the queen of them all,Pauline Kael,whose volumes I would lust after,and acquire,after having saved enough from a scant journalists salary,which was barely enough to feed me,but always magically enough to watch films.

The difference between Kael and all the others I read even before I started out as a film reviewer,was startling. First off,by the time I discovered her,she was already bound within her volumes. She was whom I reached out for,for reference to an older film,almost always before my time. Those others I read were more current,writing on films playing then in theatres. Kaels relationship with the films she reviewed was visceral,and intensely personal. The distance that I welcomed,after being pummeled by her views,came from the Schickels and Corlisses and Ansens,who also wrote on film while being deeply engaged,but who managed to keep themselves some way away. Ebert jumped right in,brought himself close to the film he was reviewing. That degree of closeness was his own,and that degree was what made him the writer he was.

It was only when I got onto Twitter four years ago that I,like so many others,discovered Ebert good and proper,and the astonishing volume and range of his writing. His tweets were the last thing I saw,and when I logged back in the morning,there he was. I speedily began following and communicating with him,and Ebert responded. He had put out a comment on Waheeda Rehman and Madhubala,and mixed up a crucial fact (his knowledge of Hindi cinema was limited). I pointed out the mix-up. He was gracious in his acknowledgement,and then invariably wrote back when I did. He came across as a fellow traveller,a comrade-in-arms.

I had put up a poignant post about a young girl whose life was cut short. He wanted to know more,and his questions and responses were empathetic and gentle. For once,I had seen a film months before him (Amour which won the Palm dOr at Cannes and the Best Foreign Film at the Oscars) and his thoughts on it were so much mine too. He wrote: old age isnt for sissies,and nor is this film… And the firemen are going to come looking for us all one of these days,sooner or later.

There were a couple of things common between us,apart from the love of e e cummings,and the lower case. He was first and foremost an old-style newspaperman. Me too,except you may call me a newspaperwoman. He was a voracious reader,and read all the time. But most of all,it was cinema that united us,despite the difference in generations and time zones. We sat in darkened theatres,week after week,year after year,and watched.

We did the same thing.