THE MAN WHO LOVED CINEMA (REMEMBERING ROGER EBERT)

It's a measure of Roger Ebert's standing as a journalist and as a film critic that his death on Thursday night received such an outpouring of affection.

Not only were Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Martin Scorsese, Steve Martin, Spike Lee, Mia Farrow and Michael Moore quick to pay tribute to the 70 year old who bravely battled cancer in his latter years but President Barack Obama alao issued a statement, noting that for many Americans and natives of Chicago, in particular, "Roger was the movies".

I first became aware of Roger Ebert in the early 1990s when the BBC briefly aired his iconic film review programme with fellow movie critic Gene Siskel.

Made by Disney's TV production arm, Buena Vista Entertainment, the opening credits of 'Siskel & Ebert' made a great play of its hosts' day jobs with two of the US's great rival newspapers - the Chicago Tribune in Siskel's case and the Chicago Sun Times in Ebert's.

But once you got beyond the cheesy opening credits, you realised this was not some puffed up programme that was in thrall to the Hollywood studio system.

Viewers were in the company of two journalists who really cared about cinema and spoke passionately and intelligently about their subject.

With its cinema balcony set, the programme set the mould for other movie shows with its hosts sparring with each other and trading views on the latest releases - a formula replicated to this day by Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh in the BBC's 'Film 2013'.

Sometimes, 'Siskel and Ebert' were in harmony. On other occasions, they clashed. However you never doubted their sincerity. 

'Siskel and Ebert' had a wonderfully effective grading system for movies, with either critic giving a thumbs up or thumbs down to each film they reviewed.

Such was their standing with the cinema-going public in America that marketing executives would proudly proclaim in movie posters if their film got "two enthusiastic thumbs up'.

Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were also responsible for bringing great world cinema and independent films to the attention of the US public.

The box office takings of movies like Neil Jordan's 'The Crying Game', Mike Leigh's 'Secrets and Lies' and Steve James' documentary 'Hoop Dreams' were undoubtedly boosted by Siskel and Ebert's championing of those films.

In 1994, I was fortunate to have an academic year in Boulder at the University of Colorado where I interned on a rival film show, 'Hollywood One On One' for the US national movie channel Starz - hosted by Scott Patrick.

It was an unforgettable year where I was immersed in movies both as a film studies student and as an intern.

But one of the highlights each week was watching Siskel and Ebert dissect and debate the latest releases every Sunday night on CBS from studio fare like Robert Redford's 'Quiz Show' and Robert Zemeckis 'Forrest Gump' to more arthouse films like John Sayles' 'The Secret of Roan Inish' or Krystof Kiezlowski's 'Three Colours' trilogy.

Every now again, they would step out of their weekly cycle of film reviews and reflect on cinematic trends.

A special programme focussing on the influence of Quentin Tarantino in the immediate aftermath of 'Pulp Fiction' - an edition of 'Siskel and Ebert' which can be viewed on YouTube - is striking because it is particularly perceptive about the director's narrative daring and his huge influence on other filmmakers.

'Siskel and Ebert' would run for 13 years between 1986 and 1999 until Gene Siskel's death - the Chicago Tribune critic passed away following surgical complications after contracting a cancerous brain tumour.

Ebert would soldier on for another nine years with Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun Times taking Siskel's place.

But while he achieved widespread fame through television, it is for the quality of his written work that Roger Ebert should be remembered.

Pick any movie of the past 25 years at random and look up Ebert's review on the website set up for him by the Chicago Sun Times.

What you will find are beautifully written tributes to the best movies of the past 25 years and also the fairest assessments of the worst films over that period.

As a reviewer, Ebert was on a par with Pauline Kael of The New Yorker or on this side of the Atlantic, the Times' Dilys Powell or The Observer's Philip French - all knowledgeable, entertaining writers.

But unlike a lot of reviewers, he also had a film credit to his name - writing the screenplay for the 1970 Russ Meyer camp cult classic 'Beyond the Valley of the Dolls' in six weeks flat.

Perhaps it was that experience that made him acutely aware of film craft - the art of screenplay writing, cinematography, art and set direction, costume design and editing.

And that is why he was so respected by filmmakers - with Martin Scorsese months before Ebert's death developing a documentary about him.

In early 2002, Roger Ebert suffered a huge setback when he contracted thyroid cancer and four years later, he lost his speech following surgery on cancerous tissue in his jaw.

Despite the removal of his jaw, Ebert never gave up and he continued to perceptively review movies for the Chicago Sun Times.

He embraced social media as a way of making his distinct voice heard despite his battle with cancer and he was a prolific and entertaining contributor on Twitter.

In 2011, he was honoured by the University of Illinois at Champaign with his own film festival in the Virginia Theater - Ebertfest - that championed overlooked movies and featured question and answer sessions with the moviemakers behind them.

Among the gems screened were Vittorio de Sica's 'Umberto D', Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis', Orson Welles 'Citizen Kane', Asghar Faradhi's Iranian Oscar winner 'A Separation' and Jeff Nichols' 'Take Shelter' as well as more unlikely fare like Norman Jewison's romantic comedy 'Only You' and John Patrick Shanley's 'Joe versus The Volcano'.

It was announced just hours after his death that Ebertfest will go ahead, as planned, on April 17 with a screening of Terrence Malick's 'Days of Heaven', kicking off festivities.

Ebert, an agnostic taught by nuns, was a passionate advocate of liberal political causes but he remained first and foremost a cineaste.

Perhaps the best testimony to the role he played in the film industry came on Thursday night from the German director Werner Herzog whose extraordinary adventure movie, 'Aguirre, the Wrath of God' he championed.

"I have a lost a friend and I have lost someone who was very, very important and significant," Herzog told Chicago's WBEZ91.5.

"He was a comrade, like one of the very last soldiers of cinema.. Over the last decade, serious discourse about cinema has almost completely disappeared. 

"He was pretty much the last one. Everything now has shifted into celebrity news. So my question is what do we do without him?”

(This tribute to Roger Ebert was originally published on April 4, 2013 on Eamonnmallie.com)