The history books will record Roger Ebert as a great film
critic. He was that, and I am certain, much more to those who loved and knew
him best. His loss has been felt by many around the globe because of the
millions he touched. Ebert took us to the movies for years; he guided our
ticket purchases, awakened in us a poetic appreciation for films we might not
otherwise have seen, and best of all, he called the public away from the
mindless, lowest common denominator of entertainment. His ability to critique
film and his way with words had the effect of “raising all our boats” in the
areas of culture, intellect, emotion, and even an awareness of the sacred.
Ebert’s ability to awaken us is what makes his death feel so
tragic; but it is also what makes his now popularized letter, “I Do Not FearDeath,” equally as tragic. Ebert’s final critique came to us not in the form of
a film review, but in a staunch and unwavering gaze cast toward seeming
permanence of death. It has taken the internet somewhat by storm and been praised by
many.
I confess, I found little praiseworthy in it. In fact, it primarily
aroused in me a deep sense of pity to see a man with such brilliance and
appreciation for beauty in life, take those gifts and place them in a room with
such a low ontological ceiling.
Ebert begins his letter with the assertion that there is “nothing
on the other side of death to fear.” The belief in nothingness after death is what
Nobel Prize poet Czeslaw Milosz called “the true opium of the people.” Ebert
himself confesses in his letter that the prospect of eternity “frightens me,”
lending great credence to the observation of Milosz. The opium of nothingness can
produce an intoxicating bliss when we come to believe that we’ve no one to
answer to on the other side of death. The liberation granted in a belief of
nothingness is probably far more pleasurable than any notion of God, for it is
according to Milosz, “a huge solace in thinking that for our betrayals, greed,
cowardice, murder we are not going to be judged.”
I am not surprised to see Ebert’s letter so readily received
by so many. Who wouldn’t want nothingness after death? Nothingness allows us to
follow our own bliss in the time we have, to suck what marrow we wish from the
bones of life, to find our own sense of purpose and meaning – to ultimately
make a go of it with the ideals that suit us and please us best. That’s opium
indeed.
What this world view ultimately lacks is a cross. The cross
of Christ stands in stark opposition to the blissful addiction of nothingness. The
cross implies direction, purpose, and it carries a stronger resolve than the
comfort of just ceasing to exist. The cross indicates that it is often our
discomfort that opens us to the deeper courage. The narrowness of it funnels
our lives into tight ideological spaces which ultimately wring out of us the greater
nobility.
I believe I probably would have never written a response to
Ebert’s letter had he not quoted Walt Whitman. I am in love with Whitman and
the familiarity of his Leaves of Grass
wash over me much like holy writ. To equate the line, “I bequeath myself to the
dirt to grow from the grass I love,” to a belief in nothingness after death is
a gross misreading of the good gray poet. In the lines preceding, Whitman says
things such as:
“I know I am deathless…. The smallest sprout shows there
really is no death and if there ever was it led forward to life…. There is that
in me -- I know not what it is – but I know it is in me… it is not chaos or
death – it is form, union, plan -- it is eternal life.”
The idea that Whitman may in fact be under our boot-sole testifies
to his belief in life after death; it is neither a denial of it, nor is it some
kind of awkward groping into nothingness. Ebert lowered Whitman’s ontological
ceiling to fit his own and this perhaps disturbs me as much as anything.
Ebert continues his letter by making references to Richard
Dawkins and meme theory which is little more than a tautological blanket tossed
over an inept, naked Emperor who has spent the last 500 years trying to cage
Platonic idealism. It is precisely the kind of mechanistic stain that Ebert
applies to his own wife’s experience of the sacred in his letter: “Do I believe
her? Absolutely. I believe her literally – not symbolically, figuratively, or
spiritually…. I believe she did it in the real physical world I have described,
the one I share with my wristwatch.”
I understand the sentiment – Ebert wanted to contextualize the
experience without cheapening it and he made a valiant attempt to make this experience and so many like it, absolutely corporeal in its essence. Yet, at the end
of the day what he aims for is hardly possible without severely cheapening the experience.
The beauty of a good film is that it takes us beyond the
screen and into the wonder and imagination of the intangible. To say that such
an experience shares the same space as a wristwatch is on its very best day, a gangly
truth. That Ebert would never use such vernacular for his favorite film and yet
chooses to apply it on the grand screen of human life is cause, not for
celebration, but for unmitigated remorse.
I give his letter 2 out of 5 stars and hold out higher
hopes, both for our species and for that which awaits us all in the Great
Beyond.
