Life Itself

Director: Steve James USA | Documentary | 2014 | 115 mins Film source: Magnolia Pictures A Burlington Film Society screening presented by Main Street Landing Over nearly five decades spent writing about, reflecting on, advocating for, and arguing over film, Roger Ebert became one of the most recognizable and beloved movie critics in the country. Always a populist at heart, Ebert’s straight-forward, Chicago-journalism honed style and his willingness to reach wide audiences through television, radio, and eventually the internet, helped to make film criticism accessible to all. Steve James, the acclaimed documentarian behind Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, and Head Games, paints a vivid, loving, but far from hagiographic portrait of Ebert that includes biographical sketches, musings on the state and history of cinema, criticisms of the critic, and an unflinching recording of the medical travails and physical and emotional struggles of Ebert’s final days. Through it all, Ebert’s indomitable spirit shines through. Included in the festival as a Burlington Film Society screening, Life Itself is a perfect ode to cinephilia and movie-lovers everywhere as well as a perfect encapsulation of the Society’s mission to keep that love alive.