Ebert has been writing reviews as long as Scorcese has been making films. In his book
Scorcese by Ebert Ebert collects all his original reviews of Scorsese’s films and interviews with the director. In addition Ebert includes a number of new essays on some of the films, which gives us an apportunity to see how someone's experience of the same work of art changes as a person changes himself.
From the IntroductionWe were born five months apart in 1942, into worlds that could not have differed more: Martin Scorsese in Queens, me in downstate Illinois, but in important ways we had similar childhoods. We were children of working-class parents who were well aware of their ethnic origins. We attended Roman Catholic schools and churches that, in those pre-Vatican II days, would have been substantially similar. We memorized the Latin of the Mass, we were drilled on mortal sins, venial sins, sanctifying grace, the fires of hell; we memorized great swathes of the Baltimore Catechism. We were baffled by the concept of Forever, and asked how it was that God could have no beginning and no end. We were indoors children, not gifted at sports: “That boy always has his nose buried in a book.”
We went to the movies all the time, in my case because television came unusually late to my home town, in Scorsese’s because to begin with his father took him, and then he went on his own, sometimes daily, watching anything and learning from it. He became fascinated by the details. I saw the story, he saw the films. He has spoken again and again of a single shot of Deborah Kerr in Powell and Pressburger’s “Black Narcissus” that arrested his attention. Something had happened there, and he couldn’t see what it was, or how it was done. Years later, he was to enlist Powell as a consultant, and discover the answer to his question. By then, he was already one of the greatest directors in film history.
I had been a film critic for seven months when I saw his first film, in 1967. It was titled “I Call First,” later changed to “Who’s That Knocking at My Door.” I saw it in “the submarine,” the long, low, narrow, dark screening room knocked together out of pasteboard by the Chicago International Film Festival. I was 25. The festival’s founder, Michael Kutza, was under 30. Everything was still at the beginning. This film had a quality that sent tingles up my arms. It felt made out of my dreams and guilts.
You will see that some anecdotes and passage repeat and the book could do with slightly better editing. But the book engages you fully as it takes you through the filmography of Scorcese and writing of Ebert which spans more than 40 years. All in all a good book for those who eat, drink, sleep and live movies (that's us, right?)
