Interview: Chaz Ebert, Director Steve James on ‘Life Itself’

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CHICAGO – The iconic film critic and renaissance man, Roger Ebert, deservedly gets a full documentary film treatment of his 2011 memoir, “Life Itself,” and who better to create it than the Chicago-based director of “Hoop Dreams,” Steve James. And who better to produce and guide it than Roger’s soulmate, his wife Chaz Ebert.

Steve James has been a conscientious filmmaker ever since his career began, and after the amazing reception for “Hoop Dreams” (1994), he has made many other notable documentaries including “Stevie” (2002), “At the Death House Door” (2008), The Interrupters” (2011) and “Head Games” (2012). James got the assignment for “Life Itself” personally from Roger and Chaz Ebert, working with Roger on the project right up to the film critic’s death.

Roger Ebert in his Element for the Documentary ‘Life Itself’
Photo credit: Magnolia Pictures

Chaz Hammel Ebert met Roger in 1989, and they were married three years later. She was by his side during his diagnosis of cancer in 2002, and the disease ultimately took away his ability to speak or eat. Chaz’s encouragement kept Ebert going, as he adopted new technology to provide voice through a computerized system, and wrote as much on the internet as he did for his home paper, the Chicago Sun-Times. Chaz was also by his side as he lost his battle with the disease on April 4th, 2013.

HollywoodChicago.com was honored to get the opportunity to talk to both Chaz Ebert and director Steve James, just days before the release – naturally on July 4th – of the film version of Roger Ebert’s aptly titled memoir, “Life Itself.”

HollywoodChicago.com: Chaz, in the film you hinted about your activist past. Since you came of age during some very decisive moments in American civil rights history, how did that turmoil affect you during your younger years, and how does it still affect your worldview in the sense of your emotions toward hope and justice today?

Chaz Ebert: I was an activist, inspired by my mother, who was a precinct captain in our neighborhood in Chicago. I used to go around with her, knocking on doors to get people out to vote.

My father was more reserved. To me, he seemed really scarred by what had happened to him growing up in the South, in Georgia, and by nature he was a reserved man. It was only when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched in Chicago [in 1966], that my father, for the first time, opened up about growing up in the segregated South, and the discrimination he had to suffer. He and I went out, and together we marched with Dr. King, and that was pivotal to me, in the sense of how deeply felt the fight for civil rights was, not just to a whole race of people, but my father, mother and I individually.

HollywoodChicago.com: How did Roger support you in that revelation?

Ebert: When I talk about Roger being ‘his brother’s keeper,’ I believed in that too. That’s the way I grew up. The fact that Roger and I were together, and found each other, meant our passions for social justice and civil rights mingled together. That was also pivotal to my own life, because I fought as an African-American woman, fighting for rights for African Americans or other minorities. But when Roger and I came together, there was new feeling of hope, because we both were very optimistic about it.

Steve James: If I can just add this. I’ve done a number of films that deal with race and racial issues. It was amazing to hear Chaz talk about that in regard to the two of them. Their relationship – a white guy from central Illinois and a black woman from Chicago – is one of the most hopeful things I’ve ever witnessed, as it relates to race in this country. They had all the awareness and participation on these issues as two people could have in a relationship, but personally it didn’t matter. It came down simply to their togetherness, a pure marriage of two people.

HollywoodChicago.com: So Steve, you had Roger’s memoir, you had other sources to study his life. At what point during the filmmaking process did you come up with the point of view you chose to use in the film?

James: I hate to keep giving Roger so much credit, that’s the problem with this. [laughs] Yes, there are outside perspectives on Roger, and they’re important perspectives because they reinforce what we learned from his book ‘Life Itself,’ and they offer other viewpoints, which the memoir can’t do.

What I love about the memoir is what I hope people will love about the movie, which is a man looking back on his life – through the prism of this extraordinary life experience he has had – and also through the way his life changed so dramatically, when he lost the ability to speak and eat, and other losses having to do with his later health issues. Yet he’s looking back over this remarkable journey of his life. That’s the film I tried to make, and that is what the memoir is – it’s all ultimately from Roger.

HollywoodChicago.com: Chaz, before you met Roger, what was your relationship with the movies? And what revelations, after your courtship and marriage, did Roger provide that opened your eyes to the love and sensibility of the world of film?

Ebert: I was always a cinephile, I loved movies even before I met Roger. One of the reasons I think he was impressed with my knowledge when we met was because I always liked all kinds of films - independents, foreign films, the mainstream, all styles of cinema. But of course being with someone like him, I continued my study of film. What he emphasized had me honing into a director’s whole body of work, rather than specific films.

Another thing he taught me to appreciate was focusing on slower moving films. Roger would always point out that in some cases, it was good to let a movie breathe, to allow the elements in it to unfold. Not all films needed to be breezy and snappy, which is what I preferred. He taught me why that was important. I also enjoyed watching his shot-by-shot analysis of movies that he loved.

James: He never had to explain to you about my films moving too slowly, did he? [laughs]

Ebert: You mean ‘Hoop Dreams’ being three hours? Come on! [laughs]

Chaz Ebert on the Red Carpet at the Chicago Premiere of ‘Life Itself’ on June 30th, 2014
Photo credit: Joe Arce of Starstruck Foto for HollywoodChicago.com