An excerpt from The New York Times review praising Steve James’ Life Itself and how the documentary came to life:
Ebert’s own recollections are joined by those of many others in Steve James’ documentary. Ebert’s filmmaker friends like Martin Scorsese and Werner Herzog, and old acquaintances whose deep fondness is apparent but who don’t gloss over his complications and confusions, from his outwardly rowdy days hanging out at O’Rourke’s in Chicago (he stopped drinking in the late ’70s) to the defensive petulance sometimes provoked by Siskel during their on-air critical brawls. (“He is a nice guy,” one friend smilingly comments, “but he’s not that nice.”)
Life Itself is a work of deftness and delicacy, by turns a film about illness and death, about writing, about cinema and, finally, and very movingly a film about love. – By Geoffrey O’Brien
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