This is a channel that archives interviews created by producer, educator, and videographer Peter Berkow. It is presented for teachers, students, and scholars as a series of video learning objects for teaching and learning.
"A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that he is that man." - Robert Warshow Ebert often said this quote is the foundation of his approach to criticism.
Very insightful. Not that he missed his calling cause there was nothing at the time like Siskel & Ebert, but reviewing is such a totally subjective business. Sometimes you feel they’re on point. Sometimes you feel they’re way off. But, it seems he could’ve been an excellent interviewer & remembered for that
Since i was s kid i loved watching Siskel and Ebert because they gave a shit, i mean they gave a shit, about film, about thought, about writing and watching their respect for each other grow over the years was beautiful.
They get knocked so often as being 'TV critics' and simple reviewers, it's wonderful to be reminded that they were at the top of the field of film criticism, with Ebert even having won a Pulitzer Prize for his interviews.
If he had said this 5 years later, he would have brought up how one step worse than the hotel interviews, are the hotel interviews with the publicist in the room. Who would basically be dictating the talking points. Not many stars were comfortable without them, and many others were not permitted to have the unscripted type of interviews Roger did so well.
Lol. Utter stupidity. Total. ‘Write what you want. You won’t be destroyed’. That’s the whole point of political correctness! Unless there were consequences, no one would subscribe to what is politically correct. The consequences are what make it something that is politically correct. Speaking of that. Never has anyone seen such a rise of pure hypocrisy.
This is an incredibly important clip to have in circulation. Not only is it bewilderingly prophetic but it’s just damn good advice from two of the best.
I miss these guys; not only are the movies less interesting these days, but hearing the reviews is a lot less interesting since they departed the scene. There's one instance I can think of when they didn't take their own advice, and did just follow the crowd of critics, when they gave glowing reviews to "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988.
@@davidlevy4291 Michael Medved was one of the few critics to publicly slam that movie, and he claimed to know critics who actually hated it but wrote glowing reviews because they didn't want to be seen as agreeing with Christians. I've seen the movie, and it stinks.
As great and as prescient as these two were, I'm not sure this is good advice for the 2020s. Saying what you honestly think & feel nowadays feels like a recipe for getting yourself cancelled.
All I want to say is that I wish Ebert and Siskel had taught my English writing courses in high school instead of what I got -- insisting on 3rd person, dry bones, "scientific" book reports, instead of encouraging the kind of personal, passionate tone that these pros knew was the true way of the art of criticism.
This is really such a wonderful bit of intellectual conversation between two guys I really respected. Shame we never get to see this kind of thing on TV any more
The "Status Quo" or P.C is the ultimate death of creativity. Further more, "Representation" is only ego and complete nonsense. Don't ever think you represent anyone other than yourself.
to say someone's a little bit sexist isn't inherently censorship or PC. It might be appropriate in the instance...also they are not trying to DESTROY someone they personally find "A little bit sexist" which is the whole point.
interesting. However I disagree that if they bad mouth a movie... What makes you think youd like the movie? like say the Texas Chainsaw remake. he said "this movie was depressing to watch" and he was right.. why would you want to see a movie that depresses you. I saw it and the constant "heroine got played over" was depressing to watch...
