Roger Ebert and the specter of death

I hope that subject doesn’t come across as too ghoulish — Ebert is a man I respect a great deal, and arguably the most important film critic of all time in terms of public awareness of the art of film criticism — but it’s the cleanest way to articulate what I think has affected his film criticism to a certain extent as of late. Most particularly, I’m referring to his top ten list of the decade and the fact that he picked Synecdoche, New York as the best film of the last ten years. In a recent Esquire feature (not online, unfortunately update: Now online!), author Chris Jones summarizes the last 7 years or so of Ebert’s life:

Seven years ago, he recovered quickly from the surgery to cut out his cancerous thyroid and was soon back writing reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and appearing with Richard Roeper on At the Movies. A year later, in 2003, he returned to work after his salivary glands were partially removed, too, although that and a series of aggressive radiation treatments opened the first cracks in his voice. In 2006, the cancer surfaced yet again, this time in his jaw. A section of his lower jaw was removed; Ebert listened to Leonard Cohen. Two weeks later, he was in his hospital room, packing his bags, the doctors and nurses paying one last visit, listening to a few last songs. That’s when the carotid artery, invisibly damaged by the earlier radiation and the most recent jaw surgery, burst. Blood began pouring out of Ebert’s mouth and formed a great pool on the polished floor. The doctors and nurses leapt up to stop the bleeding and barely saved his life. Had he made it out of the hospital room and been on his way home — had his artery waited jus ta few more songs to burst–Ebert would have bled to death on Lake Shore Drive.

In other words, the last seven years of Ebert’s life have been (at least in part) about his body failing him in the most spectacular way imaginable: a constant string of painful surgeries and debilitating diseases that have forced him to confront his own mortality in the most visceral way possible. Considering this, it’s no wonder that Ebert has identified with and championed Synecdoche, New York — which features a playwright who constantly worries about his own death and feels that his body is failing him — a movie I described thusly:

Ever witnessed a freshman struggle with the writings of Nietzsche and the implications of nihilism on his own self-awareness? Ever wanted to see that struggle blown up on the silver screen for two interminable hours?

That being said, I’m sure that my own feelings would have been much different if I was dealing with my own mortality or at an age where such feelings are prone to arising. As Glenn Kenny wrote:

Fact is, anybody over 40 is going to be profoundly uncomfortable with Synecdoche, NY, even as they admire it. How I envy all those in their twenties and thirties who can silkily shrug off the film’s extrapolation on the old country adage: La vecchiaia e carogna.