Friday, February 20, 2009

Roger Remembers Gene

Roger Ebert's tribute to Gene Siskel is a model of grace and generosity. We all knew they didn't like each other, but Ebert explains how much they did like each other--how much they responded to each other and triggered each other's responses.

Ebert is too generous, however, to thrust one important detail into the mix: Siskel was a snob. You could hear it in his voice, even if not see it in his face. He knew that he was the Yalie, the student, the man fit to keep company with an auteur. Ebert, in Siskel's eyes, was the hick from Hicksville who did not deserve a place on the same stage with him. Ebert for his part may have felt the same way, but he was self-contained. It's if he wasn't going to trouble himself with looking down his nose at Siskel; there was too much interesting work to be done.

Of course this kind of tension was hardly a drawback: you could tune in every week for the same reason you might watch the Indianaopolis "500"--to wait for the pileup and the flames. Which in the case of S&E of course never came and thank heavens for that--the show wouldn't have been nearly as much fun after therapy.

Frank Wilson
also flags to a fascinating followup from a Chicagoan who was a close observer of the whole drama. Seems overdone to me: I never thought Siskel was quite that awful. But the writer knows he turf a whole lot better than I do, and he's probably worth a thought.

Update: In the first posting, I got the names mixed up--so, "Gene Remembers Roger." Now, that would be a story worth reading.


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