Farewell Roger Ebert, my hero

I fear younger generations won’t know who Roger Ebert is. In brief, Roger Ebert was one of the most prolific film critics of all time. Not only was he the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize, he is also the only film critic to grace the Hollywood Walk of Fame with his very own star.

A lot of Ebert’s charisma came from his pure love of cinema. It was never about money or office politics. For him, there was an underlying truth to each film that deserved to be shared. His job was to expose it, no more and no less.

Unfortunately his career is lined with a sad poetry. In 2006, after beating thyroid cancer and a growth on his salivary glands, doctors discovered a cancerous growth in Ebert’s mouth. To operate on the tumour surgeons had to remove a portion of his lower jaw. Complications in surgery caused Ebert, the man who reached audiences through television and radio, to lose his voice.

But he persevered. The advent of the internet helped Ebert reach an even wider audience and he spoke to them about a variety of topics. He was, by my assessment, incredibly intelligent and enlightened. He never preached an agenda; rather, he sought debate on the topics that matter. His essay I do not fear death remains forever etched on my mind as one of the most harrowingly beautiful reads.

In it he describes Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes, and today, on what would’ve been his 71^st birthday, I pay this cinephile tribute by echoing its sentiment. He articulates his understanding below:

I am comforted by Richard Dawkins’ theory of memes. Those are mental units: thoughts, ideas, gestures, notions, songs, beliefs, rhymes, ideals, teachings, sayings, phrases, clichés that move from mind to mind as genes move from body to body. After a lifetime of writing, teaching, broadcasting and telling too many jokes, I will leave behind more memes than many. They will all also eventually die, but so it goes.

Roger Ebert passed away on April 4^th, 2013. Most people will remember him for his love of film, but I’ll remember and continue to revere his relentless pursuit of knowledge.

Farewell my hero.

Tony Ibrahim

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