Life Itself (2014) and Dead Poets Society (1989)

Watching “Dead Poets Society” –- the Peter Weir-directed classic with Robin Williams as a liberal teacher at a strict conservative boy’s school -- and “Life Itself” – a documentary about Roger Ebert’s impact on film and family -- back to back is crushing, and ironic. 

These films are oddly, wildly, surprisingly linked. Both men were and remain major film-world touchstones in my life, Williams as performer and Ebert as critic and writer. They died far too soon, Williams from suicide after a life of depression, addiction, and finally disease, and Ebert after a long, public and astoundingly courageous battle cancer. 

Also note this: Ebert hated “Dead Poets,” and I had no idea until I Googled his review after “Dead” was watched, before “Life” was viewed. 

I wondered what made a guy tick who would hate that film, and then learned just that as “Life” –- directed by Steve James –- lays out not just Ebert’s bio details, but his way of thinking, what he wanted from a film, or life, or finally love at age 50 when he married. And, damn it, to hear Ebert’s words spoken aloud, and his one film, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” detailed to the extreme, the man was a poet, genius, demanding, argumentative, and cold, too.

Especially to fellow critic and TV partner, Gene Siskel, another man taken too soon. I digress because I still wrap my head around these two films seen so close together. (Pure timing, but what timing.) “Society” – in my book -- is a classic not from my youth when it came out, but even now. 

(I know current college students who are fans, teary eyed as they talk about it.) 

Williams is John Keaton, a 40-ish English teacher who arrives at his New England alma mater prep high school, taking over for one of the ancient teachers who has died. All of the teachers are ancient, guardians of the white master class that was once American capitalism. This is the 1950s. Keating insists his students destroy the intro of their poetry textbooks, and not to learn poetry, but to experience it, live it. 

Keating further proclaims the glory of Carpe Diem -– Seize the Day -– to his charges. His energy of course rattles the boys -– among them Ethan Hawke, Robert Sean Leonard, and Josh Charles –- and they take that energy to every waking decision, bucking their strict unloving parents obsessed with tradition, money, and name. 

None of these boys had ever *thought* to question their elders. Now they are. One to a tragic end. But is that Keating’s fault? Weir certainly stacks the deck: Keating is a saint, yes, a flat angelic saint, even if we as the audience love him and boo the cruel, unsparing fathers (Kurtwood Smith among them). 

So, yes, “Poets” may be simple -– Ebert hated its simple approach –- but need every coming of age story be complicated? It’s a simply tale, beautifully told. I love the students sneaking out in winter and the finale that once left the viewer bursting with pride, but now carries a devastating coda: Out inspirations, our captains, all die, some of them because life’s hardships can even overwhelm them. How do we carry on? 

As with Keating’s roar to seize the day and break free, Ebert went by his own instinct and his own drum and could never be pinned down. This is the man who famously trashed Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” in the face of universal praise. Respect had to be paid. Debate was out. Ebert was a master of argument. “Life” is based on the short-story memoir by Ebert. 

Here’s the thing about “Life Itself” – it’s no lightweight love letter about a film critic served up to please like-minded film critics and fanatics. Geeks such as myself. 

Early on Ebert -– in a hospital bed and clearly weeks away from succumbing –- acknowledges he is dying to the camera, alone, and then later before his wife, Chazz, who refuses to believe this “scene” played out live in a hospital room, cameras on. She insists Roger can fight on. He knows he cannot. 

That’s one of the beautiful, shocking emotionally scalding punches in this movie, Ebert upfront says this is *his* film and though he won’t live to see it, he will tell it as he sees fit. He shuts James down. James complies. 

The hospital scenes are grueling, Ebert’s brief return home a clash of wills as he refuses to attempt stairs, and his last typed public words –- “I can’t” –- are heartbreaking. Those are words he seemed never to utter before, a fat kid from suburban Illinois who was no arm chair critic, but a man who loved film, and got into the business, and helped champion the likes of Scorsese, and as the “Raging Bull” director tells, once dissuaded him from suicide with a phone call. 

More so, “Life” is about Ebert’s finding of familial love, marrying into a large family of children and grandchildren, and seeing Roger out of the theater and walking a grade schooler around London, wow, that’s life. Perfect.

Dead: A- Life: A

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