Sull’Hollywood Reporter una gustosa intervista di Todd McCarthy a Roger Ebert, che racconta l’inizio della carriera di Ebert come critico cinematografico al Chicago Sun Times e come questo abbia influito sulla stessa carriera di McCarthy, per anni colonna di Variety ed ora alla concorrenza, dopo una dolorosa separazione.
Roger Ebert ha pubblicato da poco un libro di memorie, intitolato Life itself.
What qualified you for that first job as a film critic?
When they looked around the newsroom, I was young and wore my hair long. I had written a couple of features about movie actors and obituaries on Walt Disney and Jayne Mansfield. I had no formal training and no college classes in film; I was an English lit major. I learned on the job and got a lot of feedback from Chicago film lovers who were not much younger than I was. This kid named Todd McCarthy, for example.
Do you think the standard of film criticism is better or worse now than when you started?
Better, because of the Internet. This is a golden age of film criticism, although it’s often no longer a paying job. There are no length restrictions. Writing can be more esoteric or expert.
Stanze di Cinema 