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It’s likely the general public didn’t know that Gene Siskel withheld the details of his terminal illness from Roger Ebert. Gene didn’t make the information publicly known - true - but Ebert, his co-worker and closest friend, was also kept in the dark about the brain cancer that led to his early death in 1999. Life Itself (2014) doesn’t try to justify or explain Siskel’s reasons for doing this as much as it explores Ebert’s reaction to it; one of shock, heartfelt sadness, and a bit of anger. A person’s health issues are their own business, but Gene had informed his family and those closest to him of the cancer. When he finally passed away, Roger had no idea anything that serious was going on.

As Roger Ebert’s widow Chaz says in the film, “it’s hard to not take that personally.”

He didn’t get to say goodbye to his best friend, his “brother,” and that truly stuck with him.

Life Itself is a profile of a man whose existence centered around films, and the illustrious career he had built as the most recognizable film critic of all time. But beyond that, reflective of the title Roger chose for his autobiography (and consequently the film), Life Itself is about a man who conducted himself with courage, and lived to the full extent of his possibilities. It’s a film about drinking and sobriety, arrogance and hubris, desire and compromise, love and loss.

During the film, Ebert’s friends and colleagues describe him as “nice, but not that nice.” They champion him a highly intelligent man, belligerent in the face of contention but capable of compromise. Self-absorbed but loving, and above all, devoted to life itself. The film opens with Ebert calling the movies “a machine that generates empathy,” and upon completion of Life Itself, it’s easy to feel as though you’ve gotten to know Ebert the man, not just the critic.

Life Itself is, at times, a portrait of death and the variety of emotions that come with it. At one point, Chaz refers to her husband as “death obsessed.” The surprising death of Gene Siskel convinced Ebert that no matter what happened to his own health over the years, he would be open and candid about it - not just with those close to him, but with everyone. Life Itself Director Steve James spends a lot of time in hospitals and therapy rooms throughout the documentary, punctuating moments from Ebert’s past with ones of his present. Though the public frequently saw photos of Ebert in his final years, those dressed-and-presentable images were sterile compared to much of the footage captured in Life Itself.

From the obviously-painful suctioning process used to clear residue away from his air passages to witnessing the empty, hanging jaw that poetically rendered his face a permanent smile, Ebert followed through with his promise of medical candor. While this hospital drama is often challenging to witness, what’s important is the spirit through which Ebert navigates his downfall, and the positivity championed by his wife. You can’t blame Gene Siskel for taking the quiet approach to his impending fate, but it’s in stark contrast to Ebert’s route.

What nobody expected was that Ebert would die during filming of the documentary. This reality made its content more poignant, and changed some of the tone and direction of the original concept for the film.

“Those hospital scenes help make what could have been a fairly straightforward profile a remarkable piece of documentary filmmaking, as much a discourse on life and death in general as the story of one specific, extraordinary life. ” - Genevieve Koski, The Dissolve

An interesting commentary in the doc comes from legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who credits Siskel and Ebert with saving his life. During a time when Scorsese was broke, depressed, and seeing himself as a failure, the men espoused his early work and brought his material to the public, proving people out there believed in what he was doing. It’s hard to even consider someone like Scorsese doubting his filmmaking prowess, and incredible to think film critics saved him from a self-destructive mindset.

Ebert continued to write as long as he could. The personal elements of his work grew deeper as he inched closer to the end. More than ever, with no ability to speak, writing became his primary outlet for expression. The significance of his feelings about life and death were impassioned and characterized what made his work so distinctive all along - its honesty and transparency.

“Life Itself’s most powerful element is one Ebert had no control over: its context. Ebert was an advocate of context in criticism, and it would probably please him as both a critic and a fan of irony to know that his death is what enlivens Life Itself.” - again, Genevieve Koski

In an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, Chaz Ebert spoke on what she hopes people take away from the film. More than an understanding of her husband and knowledge of his life:

I think one of the gifts of this movie is that though we all say it, ‘death is a part of life,’ I don’t know if we really believe it because we are so afraid of death. One of the gifts that he gave me personally in being there with him when he transitioned is it was so beautiful, I never expected it to be that beautiful. And I think I use the word serene because the atmosphere in the room was just lovely. It was just lovely. And I never, ever, wanted to see anyone die. And to be there with Roger when he transitioned like that and to see how effortlessly he did it, and while we were holding his hands - the feeling in the room was one of love and peace and serenity. I mean, that’s just - it was just a gift.

At the Sundance Film Festival, Ebert’s wife provided another impassioned take on the film’s message:

For him, movies were not just about movies, they were really about the empathy machine of standing in someone else’s shoes, allowing you to be a person of another race, of another gender, living in a different country. He said that when you went into the movies and if it was a good movie or something really important, that it really did help transform you as a human being. He said that when you went into a movie, in those two hours, if the movie was really working its job on you properly, that you left being a truer version of who you were.

The final product of Life Itself is almost certainly a film Roger Ebert would like to have seen, and to which he would no doubt bestow “two thumbs up.”