Sadly, film critic Roger Ebert is now an off-air personality as are most critics, and even the passable sequel of the much loved
Siskel & Ebert, the aspirationally named
Ebert & Roeper went off the air in 2008. A new incarnation of the franchise is planned for the fall (
featuring A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips) , but Ebert has continued -- perhaps elevated -- the quality of his critical writing during this period. In a profession where the pressure is great for a minimalist binary sound bite -- i.e., a thumbs up or down, or at the least, a hurried Friday or Saturday night filmgoer skim -- Ebert instead follows a high-minded, albeit brisk critical tradition. An excerpt from his recent
discussion of writer-director Hirokazu Kore-Eda's Still Walking is not atypical. Sometimes his writing rises to the "pillow words" (or
Makurakotoba) standard to which he refers here, and these well articulated affinities draw me closer to him than shared views of this or that film:
None of these films elevate the temperature with melodrama. They draw us inward with concern. Kore-Eda is a tender humanist, and that fits well with his elegant visual style. In "Still Walking," he shares something valuable with Ozu: What I call Ozu's "pillow shots," named after the "pillow words" in Japanese poetry, which separate passages with just a word of two, seemingly unconnected, for a pause in the rhythm. These shots may show passing trains (a favorite of both directors), or a detail of architecture or landscape. It isn't their subject that matters, it's their composure.
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The Pillow-Words of Roger Ebert's Literary Voice
Sadly, film critic Roger Ebert is now an off-air personality as are most critics, and even the passable sequel of the much loved Siskel & Ebert, the aspirationally named Ebert & Roeper went off the air in 2008. A new incarnation of the franchise is planned for the fall (featuring A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips) , but Ebert has continued -- perhaps elevated -- the quality of his critical writing during this period. In a profession where the pressure is great for a minimalist binary sound bite -- i.e., a thumbs up or down, or at the least, a hurried Friday or Saturday night filmgoer skim -- Ebert instead follows a high-minded, albeit brisk critical tradition. An excerpt from his recent discussion of writer-director Hirokazu Kore-Eda's Still Walking is not atypical. Sometimes his writing rises to the "pillow words" (or Makurakotoba) standard to which he refers here, and these well articulated affinities draw me closer to him than shared views of this or that film:
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