Herzog by Ebert

by Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the most influential film critic in the United States, the first to win a Pulitzer Prize. For almost fifty years, he wrote with plainspoken eloquence about the films he loved for the Chicago Sun-Times , his vast cinematic knowledge matched by a sheer love of life that bolstered his appreciation of films. Ebert had particular admiration for the work of director Werner Herzog, whom he first encountered at the New York Film Festival in 1968, the start of a long and productive relationship between the filmmaker and the film critic.

Herzog by Ebert is a comprehensive collection of Ebert’s writings about the legendary director, featuring all of his reviews of individual films, as well as longer essays he wrote for his Great Movies series. The book also brings together other essays, letters, and interviews, including a letter Ebert wrote Herzog upon learning of the dedication to him of “Encounters at the End of the World;” a multifaceted profile written at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival; and an interview with Herzog at Facet’s Multimedia in 1979 that has previously been available only in a difficult-to-obtain pamphlet. Herzog himself contributes a foreword in which he discusses his relationship with Ebert.

Brimming with insights from both filmmaker and film critic, Herzog by Ebert will be essential for fans of either of their prolific bodies of work.
 

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

Published September 4, 2017

About the author

Roger Joseph Ebert was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American film critic and screenwriter.

He was known for his weekly review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television program Siskel & Ebert at the Movies, which he co-hosted for 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, he auditioned several potential replacements, ultimately choosing Richard Roeper to fill the open chair. The program was retitled Ebert & Roeper and the Movies in 2000.

Ebert's movie reviews were syndicated to more than 200 newspapers in the United States and abroad. He wrote more than 15 books, including his annual movie yearbook. In 1975, Ebert became the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. His television programs have also been widely syndicated, and have been nominated for Emmy awards. In February 1995, a section of Chicago's Erie Street near the CBS Studios was given the honorary name Siskel & Ebert Way. Ebert was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in June 2005, the first professional film critic to receive one. Roger Ebert was named as the most influential pundit in America by Forbes Magazine, beating the likes of Bill Maher, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O'Reilly.[2] He has honorary degrees from the University of Colorado, the American Film Institute, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

From 1994 until his death in 2013, he wrote a Great Movies series of individual reviews of what he deemed to be the most important films of all time. He also hosted the annual Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival in Champaign, Illinois from 1999 until his death.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of Herzog, I will read just about anything written about/by him. Unfortunately, I could never understand the appeal of Roger Ebert, whose reviews are so formulaic and ordinary that it’s a great irony that he became the champion of Herzog.

As such, Ebert's inclusion is the weakest link in this book. Each review he writes of Herzog’s films has three parts: a summary of the film that is merely descriptive, a re-hashing of an old story (remember that time Herzog moved a ship over a hill!), and a hint that there is so much “deeper” about the film than what's on the surface. But then he never expresses what that deeper substance might be. Other parts of the book include interviews with Herzog at various film festivals and events over the decades, which are much more enjoyable for the inclusion of Herzog’s voice, but often once again follow a formula: 1) Ebert fawns over Herzog, 2) Ebert makes incorrect observations about aspects of Herzog’s cinema which Herzog must then correct, and 3) Ebert asks Herzog to tell us once again about that wacky time he moved a ship over a hill (or any number of a handful of stories that Ebert repeats ad nauseum in his writings and discussions).

Less than halfway through the book, I was already bored by the repetition. (Again, “boredom,” “repetition,” and “formula” are three words that I’d never associate with Herzog, but they seem to be the prime traits of this book.) Near the end, the editors provide Ebert's “Great Movies” reviews of Herzog’s films, which I always saw as an attempt to do some revisionist critiquing of classic films (and make some quick cash). The simple truth is that Ebert’s original reviews of these Herzog films -- many of which appear near the beginning of this collection -- were not really as “great” as the movies deserved, so I guess Ebert felt the need to re-write them later in his career. Their inclusion here adds a little more meat to the discussion, which is promptly nullified by Ebert mentioning the same old stories yet again.

In the end, who, exactly, is the intended audience for this book? If you are a Herzog fan, then you will have heard all these stories, and in many cases read the reviews and interviews. If you are an Ebert fan, then you will have likely read at least half of the book already. For everyone else: almost all of this material is available on the Internet in various locations. Ebert’s reviews even appear on his website verbatim. The editors of his collection didn’t even bother to correct the typos from the original reviews! (See the final paragraph of My Son My Son.)

This turned out to be a disappointing book, and I’m glad I picked it up at the library instead of buying it. Those who are new to Herzog are better served looking to other books -- or even just turning to Google and YouTube. (Interestingly enough, the Internet helped to kill this kind of film criticism, not because the Internet is any better [it's not], but because this kind of criticism had no lasting merit in the first place.)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ebert deserves tons of credit for breaking Herzog in America but as a collection of his writings, this book is fairly repetitive.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really just a compilation of writing that Roger Ebert has done about Werner Herzog over the years, most lifted from his website but with the addition of transcripts and notes from other interviews. As always, Herzog is a fascinatingly argumentative subject - dismissing or turning over the questions Ebert throws his way. Still, Ebert has a huge love for the man and his passion for the man's work comes through the whole thing.

[Erik Bateson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea of a book focusing on a single critic's reaction to a single filmmaker. This posthumous release collects many of Roger Ebert's reviews, interviews, essays, and conversations with Werner Herzog. There are fascinating insights into Werzog's process as a filmmaker (apparently, he went very deep into the jungle to film Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre: The Wrath of God, claiming audiences could tell if he wasn't deep enough, and it would affect how they watched the film; Herzog believed in the "voodoo of locations"). As Ebert notes, Herzog's movies are often united by a curiosity of the extremes of human behavior (The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Grizzly Man are very different films, but are similar in that respect). The book does become a bit repetitive at times, but it's still a good read for fans of Ebert and Herzog.

[Thomas Radigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is little to add to what other reviewers have said. This is a compilation of various writings by Ebert about Wener Herzog, and not surprisingly there is a lot of repetition, about how Herzog disdains commercial movies, how Herzog moved a real ship across a mountain, all the crazy people he dealt with, how he did some fictionalizing in some of his movies, and so on. Basically this book could have said everything in half its length.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Werner Herzog is one of the most important filmmakers of his generation and Roger Ebert was one of the most important film critics of that same generation. Reading everything that Ebert wrote about Herzog really shows the impact that these two men had on each other and how much they admired the other. There's even a personal note that Ebert wrote to Herzog after he dedicated one of his movies to him.

Pick this one up and see how much you might be missing if you haven't seen Herzog's movies.

[E M · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is primarily what it says on the tin-- a compilation of Ebert's writings on Herzog. It was compiled after his death so this likely isn't the book Ebert might've wanted it to be. Still a pleasure to read, and their dynamic is even more interesting than the film commentary.

[Mike Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ebert was a champion of Herzog but as this collection proves, he didn't really have much insight into his work. Also because this is a collection, it gets quite repetitive.