Rule of Thumb: Ebert at the Movies

Abstract

Rule of Thumb: Ebert at the Movies. Todd Rendleman. New York: Continuum, 2012. 209 pages. $17.09. Paperback.When Roger Ebert passed away in April 2013, I was coincidently in the middle of three of his books: his memoir Life Itself, The Great Movies III, and A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length: More Movies That Suck. Yet despite Ebert's unrivaled influence on the way Americans watch movies, monographs analyzing Ebert's work have been lacking. Into the void arrives Todd Rendleman's Rule of Thumb: Ebert at the Movies, with a foreword by Ebert himself in which he expresses his surprise that a "newspaperman" could be taken so seriously.Presented with an opening chapter entitled "Godchild," those familiar with Ebert's religious upbringing may expect an account of his childhood; instead, the author traces Ebert's influences as a film critic, most critically Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris. In regards to auteurist approaches, Ebert forged a via media between the extremes of Sarris and Kael. While Ebert certainly had directors he loved to champion (Errol Morris, Werner Herzog, Ramin Bahrani), Rendleman points out that it was usually "a careful scouring of the movie, not the director's resume that governed] Ebert's conclusion" (41). This middle ground may also be the result of Ebert's "healthy Midwestern pragmatism," which Rendleman often references. The author also proves himself almost as equally well-versed in the work of Kael, Sarris, John Simon, and a host of others as he is in Ebert's.Rendleman helpfully identifies three key themes in Ebert's criticism: the critical relationship between style and content, a consideration of the film's moral implications, and a respect and protective attitude toward actors. On this last theme, compare Ebert's civility as a critic with John Simon's witty, but mean-spirited and almost juvenile insults of actresses, often concerning their appearance. Ebert sometimes expressed moral outrage when he thought actors were being exploited, perhaps most (in)famously in his one-star review of Blue Velvet (1986) to which Rendleman devotes an entire chapter. Rendleman does not address the fact that after his first book of "hated" films was released-/ Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie (2000)-followed soon after by Your Movie Sucks (2007) and A Horrible Experience of Unbearable Length: More Movies That Suck (2012), Ebert would seem to have become less tactful. The author often refers to one of Ebert's greatest contributions, a quote Ebert himself would sometimes refer to as "Ebert's Law": "It is not what a film is about. …