Greetings, GIFTS. This month I offer you a piece that is more succinct and somber than my previous posts, but comes in response to a monumental loss I feel compelled to acknowledge on behalf of the school. I speak, of course, of the death of film critic Roger Ebert about a week and a half ago.

Ebert’s passing is a profound loss, the scope of which is frankly beyond me to refine down to simple words. The man’s work enriched my intellect and passion for film incalculably and still resonates in my psyche long after passages of university textbooks on cinema have escaped my recollection like so much running water through a strainer. Every time I form a phrase, be it in a piece of poetry, prose, or a post like this, Ebert’s influence hovers before me like a match struck in the dark. “Wordsmith” is a term of praise that is applied with a widespread liberty disproportionate to those who deserve it; Ebert is one of a careful few whose work earned this title and elevated it. Familiar words rang new and vibrant by his pen. His every review and editorial read like he took the raw minerals of language, heated them with his imagination and forged them into literary steel with an intellectual hammer. An E.E. Cummings quote recurrent throughout his reviews was : “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” In Ebert’s work, every word was a star, and he let all of them dance. Indeed, the magic of his writing is as precious and pure a fact of our culture as the stars in the sky.

I was always exhilarated by the dream of completing a film that would find its way to Ebert’s column. I promise you that if I am eventually fortunate enough to produce a critical success on the appropriate scale, it will be my principal selfish regret that I was powerless to prolong the man’s life or command the fabric of time so that my work might have beamed from the projector, to the silver screen, to the grace of his critical eye. It is already regrettable that I will be unable to turn to his reviews to compare our reactions to new films; presumptuously I submit this as a regret felt by filmgoers en masse, but then Ebert always bound us together with a range of feelings. He addressed an entire audience and yet spoke directly to every one of them individually. There is no finer tribute to the man’s humanism than this fact, and even then he was far too prolific and industrious to luxuriate in the favor of the public’s heart. Ebert always rose to the defense of his colleagues, and his own Chicago Sun-Times, with haste and class whenever they fell under attack, whether the attack came from an embittered Rob Schneider (http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/deuce-bigalow-european-gigolo-2005) or the ever-vulgar Bill O’Reilly (http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/thoughts-on-bill-oreilly-and-squeaky-the-chicago-mouse). The same principles, eloquence and wit that informed his film criticism shone through on these occasions without a shred of performative tone. He worked with the confidence and sincerity of a man at peace.

The silver screen has lost its proudest critic and gained an enduring legacy. You are and always will be one of the hallmark jewels of my inspiration, Mr. Ebert. Save a seat at the balcony for me, and I’ll see you at the movies.

Alexey G.