awake in the dark the best of roger ebert

In my very first review I was already jaded, observing of ' Galia,' an obscure French film, that it 'opens and closes with arty shots of the ocean, mother of us all, but in between it's pretty clear that what is washing ashore is the French New Wave.' My pose in those days was one of superiority to the movies, although just when I had the exact angle of condescension calculated, a movie would open that disarmed my defenses and left me ecstatic and joyful. How long could you be a movie critic, anyway? I had copies of Pauline Kael's 'I Lost It at the Movies,' Arthur Knight's 'The Liveliest Art,' and Andrew Sarris' 'Interviews With Film Directors,' and I read them cover to cover and plunged into the business of reviewing movies. I walked away in elation and disbelief, yet hardly suspected that this day would set the course for the rest of my life. One day in March 1967, he called me into a conference room, told me that Eleanor Keen, the paper's movie critic, was retiring, and that I was the new critic. Robert Zonka, who was named the paper's feature editor the same day I was hired at the Chicago Sun-Times, became one of the best friends of a lifetime. I had not thought to be a film critic, and indeed had few firm career plans apart from vague notions that I might someday be a political columnist or a professor of English. I began my work as a film critic in 1967.

Awake in the dark the best of roger ebert