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Fighting for Movies With Pen and Thumb

The film critics and television sparring partners Roger Ebert, foreground, and Gene Siskel in a Chicago screening room in 1984.Credit...Kevin Horan/Magnolia Pictures

“Life Itself,” the new documentary about Roger Ebert, examines many facets of the nation’s most famous film critic: his newsman background, his exhaustively chronicled battle with cancer that ended in his death last year, his drinking, his wit, his love for his wife, Chaz.

But perhaps one of the most surprising aspects — considering his profession was often reviled by the very people whose work was being examined — is his reputation among filmmakers.

In the film, by Steve James, Ebert is the subject of impressive quotes from directors. “A soldier of cinema,” Werner Herzog says in tribute. “I wouldn’t have a career” without his support, Errol Morris declares. And, in a high compliment from any artist, Martin Scorsese confides, “I didn’t feel inhibited with Roger.”

The critic saw film as a way for people to understand one another and connect, and that devotion extended to his relationships with the filmmakers he championed at crucial points in their careers. Even as he displayed a fearless scrappiness on his television show with Gene Siskel — and published an entire book about movies he hated — Ebert established through his writing a mutual respect with many directors.

Those include Ava DuVernay. Though her credits include the well-received 2012 indie drama “Middle of Nowhere” and she is now at the helm of the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic “Selma,” Ms. DuVernay was a former movie publicist trying to make a full-time career out of directing when she released her first narrative film. She still marvels at Ebert’s unstinting support of that low-profile production.

“He championed that little film made for $50,000 so enthusiastically, so passionately, that he forced others to look at my work, others who had refused to do so before,” Ms. DuVernay said by email. “He called it ‘an invitation to empathy.’ ”

Anyone might respond well to praise, of course, but Ms. DuVernay also singled out a 1993 review of another director’s film, Victor Nunez’s “Ruby in Paradise,” as a continued inspiration.

“Roger’s words in that review are taped to my bulletin board over my desk,” Ms. DuVernay wrote, and quoted the passage: “ ‘The greatest adventures in life don’t take place in bizarre places with fantasy people. They take place as we size up the world and take our chances with it.’ ”

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Ebert with his wife, Chaz, in 1992. Ebert died in April 2013.Credit...Magnolia Pictures

Ebert’s reviews also gave a boost to Marc Forster, the director of “World War Z.” A major turning point came with his 2001 drama “Monster’s Ball.” Halle Berry would go on to win an Oscar for her performance, but Ebert’s support for the film raised its profile during awards season.

“When a critic like Roger understands your work, that inspires you, and I felt I wasn’t so off target — that started my career,” Mr. Forster said in a phone interview of the attention, which extended to his less well-received puzzler “Stay” in 2005.

An even more intense bond developed between Ebert and the director Ramin Bahrani. For him, Ebert’s support was crucial at a pivotal moment in his career. The two had been in communication, and Ebert praised “Man Push Cart” (2006) and “Chop Shop” (2008). But by his third feature, “Goodbye Solo,” Mr. Bahrani was wondering what was next, if anything.

“At that time I was not certain I should continue with filmmaking or not,” Mr. Bahrani said. “For a few months you wonder, what is the point of this?”

But he read an interview Ebert did with Mr. Herzog in which he asked the director about the purpose of making movies if the apocalypse was nigh. Mr. Herzog echoed Martin Luther’s answer to a similar question: “He replied, ‘I would plant an apple tree.’ I would start shooting a new film.”

The exchange, and Ebert’s own resilience and productivity in the face of declining health, made Mr. Bahrani want to make another film.

“There was something quite potent that got me thinking. I emailed with Roger about it, and it changed my trajectory again,” Mr. Bahrani said, adding that Ebert’s high expectations kept him sharp.

That kind of reaction to a critic is not widespread in a field where filmmakers are just as likely to remember a put-down, or avoid reviews entirely. But Mr. James recounted a moment left out of “Life Itself” in which Martin Scorsese refers to Ebert’s review of his 2006 drama “The Departed.” For Ebert, the film’s double-dealing criminals resonate because of Mr. Scorsese’s powerful Catholic sense of morality:

“This movie is like an examination of conscience,” Ebert wrote, “when you stay up all night trying to figure out a way to tell the priest: I know I done wrong, but, oh, Father, what else was I gonna do?”

Mr. Scorsese told Mr. James: “When I saw he said that, I said, ‘Well, that’s what it’s all about.’ I mean, he may say, ‘Well, it’s not enough.’ I think it is, in terms of being a human being and saying, ‘I know it was wrong. But I had no choice, I couldn’t do otherwise.’ And it took me years to understand that that’s who I am. And Roger knew that.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section AR, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: Fighting for Movies With Pen and Thumb. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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