Film and Media, Reviews

When Roger met Martin

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This Friday marks the beginning of the second week of the Chicago International Film Festival—the city’s largest screening of independent and foreign films—offering Chicagoans a unique opportunity to get a sneak peek at some of cinema’s best emerging new talent. In fact, over its 42 years the festival has introduced a number of films from now famous directors, not the least of which is Martin Scorsese, whose first film Who’s That Knocking at My Door screened at the festival in 1967 and marked the starting point of the director’s long and storied career. But another career in film was also shaped that day. Roger Ebert in the first months of his career was present at the screening, and wrote the first published review of a Scorsese film—beginning a back-and-forth between director and critic that Time Out Chicago’s Hank Sartin writes, was the occasion for “some of the critic’s most thought-provoking reviews.”
In his new book Scorsese by Ebert Ebert offers the first record of his engagement with the works of America’s greatest living director chronicling every single feature film in Scorsese’s considerable oeuvre, from his aforementioned debut to his 2008 release, the Rolling Stones documentary, Shine a Light. The book also includes a number of new and unpublished essays as well as Scorsese’s own insights on both his accomplishments and disappointments.
Find out more about the book with Hank Sartin’s recent review in Time Out Chicago, or read an excerpt.
Also don’t forget to hit up the Chicago International Film Festival running this weekend through the 29th of October.