It started ten years ago with a Google search.
“Oh HELL no."
Roger Ebert, acclaimed critic, cofounder of the famous thumbs up-down trademark, premiere pulitzer prize winning writer of countless columns, a championing and damning voice for thousands of films that graced the silver screen – had just done the unthinkable: he’d given not four, but three and a half stars to The Return of the King.
"You sir, are WRONG."
He had to be wrong. No one in their right mind would give Return of the King, the greatest of all great movies that was impervious to imperfection, a non-perfect score. How DARE he proclaim that this masterpiece of a fantasy narrative be a half star inferior to Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Unforgivable. Absolutely, wholly, unbelievably, unfathomably, unforgivable.
"You think you’re so cool huh? You think that some insomnia-curing film like Master and Commander is superior to Return of the King? Your credibility is DEAD to me, you hear me? DEAD. Like my interest in British naval ship stories which, for your information, is boring. Bravo-Oscar-Romeo-India-November-Golf – BORING."
The insanity couldn’t be overlooked, and compulsion unhinged a inquisitive madness.
"Well mister three thumbs and a half man, let’s see what OTHER films you’ve written about! Let’s see if you and I are on the same page about what makes a good or bad movie! Let’s see if you’re even qualified to BE critic!"
The train had left the station, and it was unstoppable. Not that I knew that at the time, nor do I ever plan on getting off of it any time soon.
…
Reading Roger’s columns on a weekly basis started off with a inherent desire to feel validated for my likes and dislikes, or to shoot mental daggers in his general direction whenever I felt he was wrong, wrong, and Oh So Wrong. But no matter what he said, no matter how much I disagreed with his final say, no matter how many eye twitches some of his star ratings triggered, I kept reading.
I read, and I grew.
After two years of weekly column visits, it suddenly hit me that I no longer cared about his star ratings, nor were my disagreements with his opinion increasing my blood pressure; at what point this had occurred I’m not entirely sure, but the self-awareness was something of a life changing moment. I had been reading before, but now I was really reading.
It wasn’t about likes or dislikes, stars or half stars, validation or the like: it was the content, his honesty, his conviction, and his conveyance of it all.
I was reading to understand, to learn, to push past the familiarity. And Roger was generous enough to offer such an avenue on such a regular basis.
Roger’s prose and love for film was infectious, and I found myself writing short film reviews in 2008 after Wall•E and The Dark Knight made waves. Scratch that – I finally summoned up the courage to articulate my thoughts with multiple flicks of the keyboard. In retrospect, my reviews were clumsy, flawed, and amateur at best, but I’d written them in a small leap of faith. A small leap, but an all too important one that was the precedence for what would come in two years.
Perhaps coincidentally or not, 2008 marked the year Roger began his online blog, Roger Ebert’s Journal. It was such a simple title, yet an effectively honest one at the same time. A legendary writer that I’d been reading religiously for five years, a man who I admired for his thoughtful, intelligent opinions and film recommendations, had entered the blogosphere. And he was reading all of the comments that flocked to it.
I may have been slightly intimidated from initially joining the conversation.
I read, I wrote, and I hesitated. For months I hesitated like a deer in headlights: what could I possibly say to a man I respected, admired, essentially idolized? What right did a nobody like me have to even litter his comment system with anything? More to the point, what insight could I possibly offer for an already insightful film icon?
I continued to read, but now I was perusing his blog’s comments section more and more, and what I saw was something I didn’t think was possible in the age of trolls and snark: intelligent, thoughtful, and sincere responses from all over the world, all unified in the pursuit of mindful discussion. And Roger was personally responding to a select few of them.
Still I hesitated, but courage also welled up over the course of a four months. And then an opportunity arose.
August 30th, 2008 – I had randomly clicked on my Google Reader account, and there it was, brightly displayed on my screen: Roger had just updated his blog with a entry titled "How to Read Movie.” I clicked instantly, and saw that there no comments.
Perhaps the lack of comments, or a desire to be one of the first commentators, or a combination of both eliminated my hesitation from writing a response. Whatever it was, I found myself devouring the essay, striking the keyboard with flicks of my fingertips, and pressing the “submit” button before the hesitation flooded back. The only blip of pause I had was deciding whether or not to spell out my full name in the submission box: I wanted to write it out, but something internal compelled me to instead type in a more anonymized version. Maybe it was my fondness for pen names that I’d inherited from my parents, or maybe I simply liked the way it looked on screen.
Whatever it was, from that moment on I was Q. Le. And I’d finally responded.
Now I just had to wait for Roger to read it, and to see it published. I was nervous, but excited at the prospect. Even if he thought my response was barely a step above stupid, and there was the possibility of him screening it out entirely, at least I’d finally summoned the baseless confidence to write something, anything. I may never do it again, but at least I’d tried.
About twelve hours later, I re-visited his blog, and there it was: my comment was the first one published, and he had personally responded to it. (Link)
My jaw dropped, my heart may have skipped a beat, and the world was silent for a few milliseconds.
Then I ran around my apartment, flailing my arms and babbling incoherent garble like a blubbering idiot to the mild bemusement of my roommates at the time.
Roger had responded to me. He’d read my comment, and he’d replied to a nobody who had written something that deep down, I feared might be interpreted as precocious. But he’d responded nonetheless, and that was something I never dreamed of ever happening.
I was elevated, and another gear clicked into full action in my brain. I couldn’t hesitate anymore, wouldn’t shy away anymore – my voice was out on the net, Roger had acknowledged it.
Before I knew it, I’d become a full-on participant in the wonderful world of his well-mediated discussion threads. Inhibitions and social anxiety attacks be damned, my mind refused to shut up, and the internet was going to deal with it like it or not. I wrote, thought, read, processed, mused, debated on full throttle – and I knew then and there that I’d been on a unstoppable train all along.
When Roger first emailed me, I had a second arm flailing episode before all too eagerly responding. Even now I still can’t believe that he, THE Roger Ebert, took the time to write a small note to me every now and then. It was a privilege, even a stroke of luck that he’d found me worthy of a few extra keystrokes, but it was easily one of THE lifetime events that I’ll never forget. And sure, he’d emailed me about subtle satire I didn’t catch but hey, I wasn’t the only one.
Yet it still took two years before I was confident enough to begin my own blog, to further explore the pathway that my previous attempt at film reviewing had opened. Family and friends had been encouraging me to begin for months, but it was really Roger’s response to one of my more personal comments that set off the trail blazing.
(Link)
For two years, I’d been reading his blog, a personal space on the internet where he shared his thoughts, emotions, weaknesses, and strengths. It was time to reciprocate his generosity, and to demonstrate that I was capable of producing something after seven years of continuously reading and learning from his writings.
And so I began this blog on May 5th, 2010.
It began as a modest attempt to focus primarily on film and animation, and I decided from the beginning that I would not divulge information pertaining to my age, gender, or education level: I wanted readers to interpret my writing for its content, not for preconceived ideas associated with social identifiers.
I also took a cue from Roger and made it very difficult for trolls to be attracted to the blog – and by difficult, I only introduced screened disqus comments about two months later. If someone wanted to be a vitriolic ass, they’d have to put in the extra thirty seconds to type out a message in the submission box. Unsurprisingly, this proved to be a rather effective method, and a rather intelligent decision for what was to come.
When I finally shared my blog with Roger, he demonstrated his generosity once again by tweeting me to his followers – me, a newcomer to the blogosphere, and yet he still considered me worthy enough for a tweet. Again, I spent a good few minutes running around my apartment hollering, though by now my roommates had decided that I was a few differentials from crazy and found this behavior spontaneously normal. (Link)
People around the world were now reading my thoughts, and I got a few friendly emails from thoughtful readers. This was a honor that only Roger could have blessed me with, and I was eternally grateful. Perhaps it was a coincidental twist of faith, but the first blog he linked me happened to be a modest essay on film composition, and it so happened that the first time I commented on Roger’s blog was on a essay on film composition as well.
Life is wondrously circular like that, I suppose.
June 29th, 2010 – I’d been aware of the controversy for months, but after deciding that I simply couldn’t keep silent, I spent the next few days researching and parsing out what would be one of the biggest endeavors in my life so far:
I wrote “Facepainting,” an argumentative essay that sought to put the issue of casting Caucasians over non-Caucasian actors in a historical and institutional context. I wrote for hours before posting it; and then, in what was easily one of my most precocious moments, emailed Roger with a vain hope that he might read it, and perhaps provide some feedback as to what was strong and flawed in the post.
He responded, like I’d hoped.
He also tweeted it.
My inbox was flooded for the next week. I received emails from supporters, detractors, and even news outlets that asked for an interview or an editorial on their website. The Last Airbender bombed both critically and box office wise, though this was never my intention to begin with: there was an institutional racism at hand that needed to be addressed, and Roger not only acknowledged it, but openly supported it. He understood his power as a public figure, and chose to utilize it in raising awareness for many causes, including one that hit especially close home to me.
The gamble to not reveal social identifiers besides being Vietnamese had paid off: the article spread like wildfire, people were discussing institutional racism in the film industry, and while detractors tried to infer who I was, none of them were able to distract away from the more important issue at hand by dropping sexist, ageist, or elitist/common man rebuttals since they really had no idea who I was. The only people that knew the identity of this blog’s sole writer were family, friends, and Roger himself. (Link) (Link)
I opened up to Roger in his comments section more than I did in this blog, and he respected my wishes whenever I asked for him to not publish certain facts about me. He understood my desire for a certain level of anonymity, and while some other commentators asked about me, he never revealed the information I’d quietly shared with him. (Link)
Roger knew my name, what I’d studied, my age, whether I was in possession of a penis or not, but even then he never discouraged me from writing, reading, and discussing film; in fact, he was even more encouraging the more he knew about me, and even suggested different avenues of interest to satiate my insatiable curiosity. For this, I’m eternally grateful and indebted to him.
Roger linked me two more times in the aftermath of “Facepainting” – “The Essential Critic (and why we need them)” and “Dear Mr. Parsons” – before moving on to linking better blogs from better writers. But still I wrote, still I read, and still I responded; likewise, he read and responded once in awhile. He was a busy man, and my life was (and still is) in flux. I began writing and responding less, though for a time I was still reading and thinking voraciously.
Then I inexplicably stopped – writing, responding, and effectively thinking. And I’ve regretted it to this day.
At first I attributed to working for an NGO in Vietnam for almost a year, and being alone for most of the time triggered bouts of depression due to separation and cultural isolation. Then, when I came back to the US, when mental vigor was still severely missing, I attributed it to being unemployed and being preoccupied with finding a sense of stability. Then, after five months of demoralizing job hunting, I found a job, and then I got another. But still I wasn’t writing, and while I responded only once, I’m ashamed to say that I wasn’t reading as much. I still read, but not to the same level of intellectual vivaciousness that possessed me before.
The truth is that, while I may have told myself that cultural isolationism and unemployment rendered me impotent intellectually, there were much more personal forces at play, but I will not divulge one of the main reasons. I thought about revealing it here, but perhaps another day since, if I write about it now, it is likely to be a unnecessary distraction. For now, I’ll elaborate on the other core reasons:
I was insecure, cowardly, lazy, and changing.
I was intimidated by better writers who made up Roger’s Far-Flung Correspondents and At the Movies, and others who contributed to his blog and content in other ways. I wanted to meet Roger in person so badly, but I felt unworthy and insignificant in the shadow of aspiring filmmakers and articulate cinephiles that demonstrated more potential and knowledge than me. I was in awe, but I was also abashed.
I stopped fighting with words. Of course I wanted to respond on multiple occasions, both in defense and leveled disagreement with Roger – the most striking episode was when he commented about Ryan Dunn’s death – but the disconnect between intention and action is what differentiates and defines people. In saying nothing, I was really no better than his detractors.
I let myself stagnate. Unemployment was demoralizing, and I let myself stagnate into compounds of mindless escapism either in the form of television I didn’t actually watch or games I wasn’t even good at. The reality of instability was tough, but it wasn’t an excuse to undermine inquisitiveness. There is no excuse for a lack of curiosity.
Lastly, I was changing. While I still found myself dissecting and analyzing (though it was solely conversational), I also found myself inching towards creating, to enacting my own knowledge into full-on creative works like I’d dreamed of doing since I was a child. Criticism and creativity are much more aligned than most acknowledge, and they even compliment each other; but at the time, it was difficult to maintain both mindsets without feeling a introspective disconnect.
A combination of all the above resulted in my mind coming to a sudden stop, and what I consider the ultimate betrayal to Roger. Roger had supported and encouraged me from the beginning, and I’d let lesser forces stop me from reciprocating everything I’d learned from him, and more. This is something I will always regret.
Of course, I made several attempts to get back to my previous self, but the ball only began to really roll about a week ago when I decided to post not one, but two blog updates five months after my previous post. I kept thinking that I still had time to reemerge and let Roger knows I was still around, reading and thinking; that I still had time to go back and finally respond to all of his entries that I’d wanted to respond to; that I still had time to send him a friendly email; that I still had time to eventually meet him at Ebertfest 2014 in person and introduce myself with the line,
“I’m Q. Le, nice to meet you."
But now it’ll never happen.
April 4th, 2013 at 1pm – I had just walked back into the office after working in a basement for five hours. As I settled down into my desk, I saw that my close friend had message me.
"Odd,” I thought, “She knows I’m working right now."
I quickly looked at her message:
"Roger Ebert!!!”
Perplexed, I wondered what Roger had to do with anything, but instinctively (and fearfully, at a subconscious level) did a quick Google search. And then I saw it:
Roger had passed away at age 70.
Roger was gone.
To say that I was numb would be inaccurate – paralyzed, most definitely. Grief and despair flooded my emotions, and it was by some sort of miracle that tears didn’t well up and fall onto my face, hands, and desk.
I ate lunch in silence, unwilling to believe that Roger was gone. I didn’t even taste my food; everything was mechanical. There was a great void, yet I still couldn’t – no, wouldn’t believe Roger was gone.
No more daily tweets. No more movie recommendations. No more Facebook posts. No more blog posts. No more weekly movie reviews.
No more stars.
He’d left behind such a presence in writing, on television, and on the internet, it just didn’t feel right. A man who knows he’s dying doesn’t plan on starting a Kickstarter to get At the Movies back on air, or say that he’ll only be reviewing films he wants to, or – oh hell, I don’t even know. It felt surreal, and that’s all I knew.
I’d ordered Roger’s autobiography “Life Itself” when he first announced and published it, and it is still sitting on my keyboard. I at least wanted to read it before Roger passed away, but even then I’d failed him in that respect.
No, I thought. I can’t let it end like this. I owe him that much.
I needed to say something.
And so I sat down, and I’ve spent the last three days writing this.
…
Roger left behind a great void that I don’t believe anyone can ever replicate. But, as any wise soul knows, replication is pointless: Roger articulated his uniqueness – voraciously, vivaciously so. He continued to live even after cancer had thrashed his body and took away his ability to speak. He projected his energy both in real life and through the mediums of writing, television, and eventually the internet.
Perhaps that’s why it felt so surreal to hear that he’d died: his presence is still strong on the net, forever archived to be read and reread. Even now, when I read his old entries, it doesn’t register that Roger is gone; I still hear his voice, his enthusiastic keystrokes that demonstrated how life isn’t limited to our bodies alone, but that if you have the capacity to live life with your full body intact, you’ll be full of regret if you choose not to eat that damn good hotdog every once in awhile; to get off your ass make use of your legs and feel the wind and daylight cool and burn your skin.
To love in a unloving world, and to give in a ungiving world – he did this, and more.
I have done foolish things, though easily the most foolish things include what I’ve described above, as well as a response that, while only meant to be a friendly segue for additional discourse about technology and its limits, sounds coldly pragmatic in retrospect, and severely missing the point.
Roger, in his good graces, wisdom, generosity, and kindness of spirits, supported me from the very start. He understood me more than most people, and perhaps even more than I about myself. He forgave my shortcomings, and continued to guide me through the power of his words and wisdom.
I’ll never meet him in real life, but at least I knew him in spirit and mind.
Now, with these last few sentences, after having written this essay in tribute to Roger and what he meant to me, I find myself finally coming to terms with his leave of presence. Roger is gone, but his memory is forever forged in the hearts and minds of millions.
I respected and loved Roger for all that he was. Even if our main difference may have been that he preferred British naval fiction and I preferred Middle Earth, or perhaps there was a greater void of difference that I wasn’t aware of, at the core he did something for me that I am eternally indebted to:
He sparked my love for film and curiosity into a full fledged flame. Or perhaps he knew I was already aboard the train, and guided me to the point where I suddenly became aware of the train’s existence.
Whatever the case was, I am eternally grateful to Roger. For his support, his discourse, for everything. I have severe regrets that will haunt me, but I’ll always take solace that in the end, I’ll end up back in the cosmos in some shape or form. Perhaps then I’ll finally be able to meet Roger and say,
“I’m Q. Le, nice to meet you."
Farewell Roger, and I hope your balcony view with Gene is a good one. I look forward hearing both of you have a ball of time talking about why you loved and hated the movies that will grace the silver screen for years to come.
Warm regards,
Q. Le
Originally published here on April 7, 2013. Full pictures available.