Life Itself

This film, whose name is taken from the title of his memoirs, documents the professional life and associated behind the scenes personal life of Roger Ebert, perhaps best known as one of the preeminent film critics of his time, both of the Chicago Sun-Times and in his many television appearances with rival film critic, Gene Siskel, of the Chicago Tribune. The film chronicles, among others: Ebert's knowledge from a young age that he wanted to be a print journalist to capitalize on his natural flair for writing, and the measures he took to achieve that; being appointed a reporter for the Sun-Times in 1967 and his appointment shortly thereafter to being its film critic; his unlikely on-the-surface collaboration with sexploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), written by Ebert; being awarded a Pulitzer Prize, the first person to be awarded such for film criticism, and how he used that prize to advance his career; his admitted alcoholism and being sober since the late 1970s; his antagonistic collaboration with Siskel, and how that collaboration eventually blossomed into friendship, characterized as a relationship akin to sibling rivals; how their television shows changed the face of popular film criticism for good and bad; getting married for the first time late in his life, his wife Chaz Ebert who would be by his side personally and professionally until his death; how he helped the careers of many struggling filmmakers, some of who would become his friends, and how those friendships affected how he reviewed their subsequent movies; how Siskel's illness and subsequent death affected how Ebert dealt publicly with his own physically deforming cancer; and how his deteriorating health affected how this documentary ended up being framed.