Siskel and Ebert and The Movies

A new biography explores the film critics' legendary rivalry. Plus: My takes on "Beckham," "The Gilded Age" and more!

When I became aware of Matt Singer’s book about Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, I got jealous. Somehow, I felt scooped, even though the author brainstormed and pitched the idea first. The nerve! I got my hands on a copy as soon as possible, then stayed up past my bedtime savoring every page, then reached out to Matt through multiple channels, requesting an interview for this newsletter. Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever, will forever have a place on my bookshelf, next to the other books that I wish I’d written, but were claimed — and wonderfully told — by exactly the right person at exactly the right time.

Matt, the editor and film critic of ScreenCrush.com and a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, digs deep into an iconic love-hate relationship that began in Chicago during the 1970s. Siskel critiqued movies for The Chicago Tribune while Ebert, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism, carried the beat at The Chicago Sun-Times. The newspapermen initially despised each other, reflecting the entrenched animosity between the stuffy Trib, which had a suburban subscriber base, and the scrappy Sun-Times, which catered to the city. In a stroke of genius, the local PBS station built a movie review two-hander, the first of its kind, around their rivalry. Neither Siskel nor Ebert resembled traditional television stars; Siskel was lanky and balding, and Ebert wide and bespectacled. But like Julia Child, whose low-budget show introduced French cuisine to American cooks, the critics’ unconventional on-air personas proved hugely appealing. For more than 20 years, deploying their “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating system, they engaged in thrilling, often funny intellectual combat and debated each other on everything — even movies they both liked. They took their act nationwide, thriving in syndication, roasting each other on Letterman, but never left Chicago. (Ebert turned down job offers from The New York Times and The Washington Post, joking, “I don’t want to learn new streets,” his widow Chaz told Matt.)

Siskel and Ebert showed impressionable young viewers that discussing a movie was worthwhile and fun and you didn’t need a fancy film-school pedigree to form an opinion. In high school, I moonlighted as a “teen movie critic” (lol) at The Beacon News in Aurora, Illinois, near my hometown. I remember reviewing Armageddon, which I hated except for the Aerosmith song. One day, I went to the paper and met the other teen movie critics. An editor divvied up our assignments and I sized up the competition. Though we hailed from different schools, we shared nerdy conviction. We had all grown up with Siskel, Ebert and their opposable thumbs.

Matt grew up in New Jersey and got hooked on At Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert around the age of 11. The program aired late at night, and after his parents had gone to sleep, he’d slip out of bed and watch in secret. Yesterday, we connected to take a trip down memory lane. Our conversation has been edited and condensed.

Gene Siskel died from brain cancer in 1999 — he was only 53 years old. I loved learning more about him and what made him tick. He was a real journalist’s journalist. Ebert also called Siskel the most competitive person he’d ever met, and the inferior writer of the two. What did Siskel bring to their partnership?

First and foremost, Gene Siskel had that competitive spirit. It was very important to their onscreen dynamic and certainly that energy on the show, that sort of live-wire tension where you never knew what movie was going to set them off or spark a disagreement. It didn't have to be an important movie. It didn't have to be a serious movie. They could get into a huge fight over the dumbest and most frivolous movies because they took the debate that seriously. … You weren't just tuning in to see what they would say about Full Metal Jacket. You hung around to see what would happen when they talked about Benji the Hunted on the same exact episode, and they had huge fights about both movies on the same episode.

The other thing I would say that Gene really brought to the table in a way that I really appreciate now — as someone who's in this world professionally — is just the bluntness and the honesty that he brought to the job. He didn't care who made the movie, he didn't care who was in the movie, he didn't care which studio made the movie. He didn't care what they had done before. He didn't care what they had said about him if they didn’t like [his reviews]. There was no amount of buttering up or niceness — there was no way to sway him. He famously loved Saturday Night Fever — that movie became this weird, fascinating fixation for him — but it wasn’t like, “Well, John Travolta is the star of my favorite movie, so I'm going to give him a pass forever.” Not anything close to the case. He gave bad reviews to lots of John Travolta movies.

Martin Scorsese was probably Siskel and Ebert's favorite director. When he made a movie they didn't like, they gave it thumbs-down. They gave two thumbs down to The Color of Money, an amazing movie I happen to love. But they didn't think it was up to his standard. And I just think, especially today, you see so many people who love talking about movies and love the world of movies, but they're also somewhat nervous about losing their access or pissing someone off or saying the wrong thing and upsetting someone. And you can tell that they're measuring their criticism. When you watch Siskel and Ebert, you never for one second think that of Gene Siskel. You might agree with him, you might think he's way off-base. You might hate all of his opinions, but I don't think you can ever doubt that they are his genuine opinions. And I think that's something very valuable for a film critic. And that's something that Gene Siskel had more than almost any critic in the history of criticism.

Ebert reviewed movies long after Siskel’s death and arguably eclipsed his partner in influence. I sometimes go back to his archives on RogerEbert.com and search for his cold takes. What did Ebert bring to the table?

What Roger brought — besides just his general taste level, his incredible writing, his knowledge, his storytelling, all of those obvious things — was the fact that he and Gene felt like real peers and equals and rivals. If they had just hired some other critic who didn't have the bonafides, I think Gene wouldn't have had that intense reaction to I got to beat this guy week after week. That he could never quite get one up on Ebert was a big part of it.

Did it bother Siskel that Ebert had a Pulitzer?

Yes. People told me in interviews that it did, especially in the beginning of the show. [Producers] wanted Gene to say, “Across the aisle from me is Roger Ebert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.” And I think, very understandably, according to some of the folks who worked on the show, he did not like having to say that week after week because it was like this constant reminder of the fact that Roger had this award, and he did not. … During rehearsals, he would avoid saying it. He would instead [joke] “Across the aisle from me is Roger Ebert of the Las Vegas Shopper-Tribune,” or whatever.

Despite their open hostility, they often supported one another off-camera. Siskel’s daughters were flower girls at Ebert’s wedding. Ebert publicly defended Siskel when the Tribune demoted him! How did their relationship soften and become more loving over time?

They claimed that they had only ever hugged a single time in their whole relationship — when they were on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, backstage for the first time and absolutely terrified. But they did soften, and I think love is kind of the right way to put it — we don't want to go too overboard about it. They never became besties. [They] socialized together very infrequently. They might go out on a double date — like them and their spouses after Roger and Chaz got married. Chaz told me, yes, they would occasionally do that, but it was not the kind of thing where after they shot a couple of episodes on a Thursday or a Friday, [they’d say], “Let’s go out to a movie or go to the Bulls game together or do this or that.” That did not exist. That was not the relationship they had, but they did kind of grow to really respect one another and appreciate one another. When you look at the way Roger reacted to Gene's death, I mean, he was really upset about it. He was kind of hurt by the fact that he did not know that Gene was so ill. Gene didn't tell anyone outside of his closest family how sick he was up until the day he died.

Together, they championed smaller gems like Hoop Dreams and turned them into huge hits. They recommended documentaries, foreign films and classic cinema, along with the big, commercial stuff. (They rightly praised You’ve Got Mail too.) How did their eclectic tastes impact the ordinary viewer?

They could have been gatekeepers of movies, but they were a gateway to movies. Instead of saying, “You haven't seen Citizen Kane, what's wrong with you?” they would say, “If you haven't seen Citizen Kane, you're missing out on this wonderful, amazing, brilliant, beautifully shot, thought-provoking movie that's still relevant today. And now you can watch it on VHS or LaserDisc or whatever it is.” And they would show clips and they would talk about it so passionately that you, sitting at home, or me, sitting at home, would say, “I got to see this movie Citizen Kane, even though I'm 14 years old, and I don't know who the hell William Randolph Hearst is, and I barely know who Orson Welles is.” And I watched it as a kid on a little TV in my parents' house, and I was blown away by it. The very format of the show, almost subliminally, was democratizing film criticism.

Do you ever find yourself wondering what they’d think of certain movies? Especially the polarizing ones, like Tár.

I would've loved to have seen what they had to say about [Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon], and I don't like to speculate about whether they would've given it thumbs-up or thumbs-down. But I just think in general, they would've been happy that this director who they adored and who they respected as this really important voice in American film — who took chances and made these bold movies — was still doing that now at 80 years old, decades into his career.

What surprised you in your research for this book?

I had heard a lot of the stories, the famous stories about the two of them, but there were plenty that I hadn't heard before. I did not know that Siskel and Ebert had attempted to create a pizza that was sold at a Chicago pizza place for at least a little while. That blew my mind. The fact that they thought the way to improve pizza was to give it more crust. How do we reinvent pizza? Let's make a donut pizza that has doubled the crust.

A donut pizza? Yes, chef! I’m going to tag the writers of The Bear. Carmy should add it to his menu in season three.

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You can buy Opposable Thumbs HERE. In further reading, check out my friend and fellow newsletterist Will Leitch’s excellent review of the book.

Other things I’m loving these days:

*Beckham: This Netflix documentary fascinates. I demand a sequel that focuses on the football legend’s better half, Victoria, a.k.a. Posh Spice, plus bonus footage of the couple dancing.

*Nyad: Also on Netflix, Annette Bening is simply magnificent braving the currents as Diana Nyad, who famously swam from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage — when she was 64. Jodie Foster plays her coach and protector; their friendship keeps Nyad afloat.

*The Gilded Age: In the third season of his HBO corset drama, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes dials up the intrigue, by which I mean juicier scenes of Carrie Coon acting all Lady Macbeth-cuckoo and Christine Baranski eviscerating fools with her withering glare, Dame Maggie Smith-style. It’s not Downton Abbey, but it’ll do!

*Higher: Chris Stapleton’s voice is as smooth as Tennessee whiskey, as sweet as strawberry wine — or a cup of hot apple cider on a gray November morning. He does it again on his latest blues-country album. I hear Springsteen in here, and I also hear the soundtrack of Bridget Jones’s Diary??? Listen to “Loving You On My Mind” and see what I mean.