BY DARSHAN PATELEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Roger Ebert was more than a film critic.

He was a journalist and a pioneer of his time. He found new ways to tell his stories: through his television show, through his books, through his website and through social media.

He endured so much through the years. He battled thyroid and salivary gland cancer and lost his voice and lost a part of his jaw. His cancer resurfaced after a hip fracture late last year. Yet his writing perse-vered, and he never missed a beat as a beloved figure in the film industry.

He confronted his long and laborious battle with cancer publicly. And just days ear-

lier, he said goodbye in what his friends call a fitting way: through his intellectual, cre-ative words.

“So on this day of reflec-tion I say again, thank you for going on this journey with me. I’ll see you at the movies,” Ebert wrote in his blog post, announcing he was taking a “leave of presence.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning critic died Thursday at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chi-cago, announced the Chicago Sun-Times, where he had been working for over four decades. He was 70.

He was scheduled to attend his annual film festival, Ebert-fest, which will still be held later this month.

Ebert’s death was met with

sadness from the Champaign-Urbana community, a place where he grew up and called home.

“Roger Ebert was a dear friend to this campus and a great ambassador for the University throughout his career,” Chancellor Phyllis Wise said in a statement. “He truly changed the way we talk about film and how we think about art and media. Thanks to Roger, none of us will ever see a movie in the same way again.”

Ebert was born on June 18, 1942, in Urbana and earned a bachelor of science degree in journalism from the Universi-ty. But his years at The Daily Illini defined his career, his long-time friends said in the

wake of his death Thursday.This year marks the 50th

anniversary in his position as editor-in-chief, a role that Ebert called “the highlight of his career,” said Michael David Smith, who was the editor-in-chief in 1999 — the same year of Ebert’s inaugu-ral film festival.

Ebert’s moment might have never come. His father had died during his freshman year at the University, and he had offered to drop out of the Uni-versity to join the workforce to help his family, his moth-er later told Betsy Hendrick, a friend who met Ebert while they were both working at The News-Gazette.

“She wouldn’t hear of it,”

Hendrick said. Ebert was in high school then, while Hen-drick was attending college.

While he was editor-in-chief, Ebert penned a column after John F. Kennedy’s assas-sination — arguably one of his greatest works as a college student — which was repub-lished in the Illini Media’s 100th anniversary edition.

“We all rushed to The Dai-ly Illini (after Kennedy was assassinated). Everyone who worked for the paper came running down. Of course the bells were going off in the AP (Associated Press) and UPI (United Press International) machines, signaling a major story. And Roger was there front and center. ... He knew

what to do,” said William Nack, who succeeded Ebert as editor-in-chief.

After graduating, he spent a year studying in Cape Town, South Africa. He then went on to be a world-renowned critic, whose “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” became an icon for his reviews and his TV shows, which he hosted first with Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel and then with col-league Richard Roeper.

In 1975, he became the first to earn a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. But his most important honor was

THE DAILY ILLINI

Roger Ebert 1942-2013

A Student Newspaper Serving Illini for Over a CenturyURBANA-CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS, FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 2013 FREE NUMBER 132ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTY-SECOND YEAR TEN PAGES

News 3A Sports 1BOpinions 4A

Editor’s Note: The following col-umn was first published on Octo-ber 4, 1961, in The Daily Illini and was one of Roger Ebert’s first pub-lished movie reviews.

There is in “La Dolce Vita” a great deal to be puzzled about, and a great deal to be impressed by, and perhaps a great deal which we as Americans will never completely understand. Yet it is a fine motion picture. And we have the feeling that even those students who sat through its three hours with a measure of boredom came away convinced that something was there. It is this something, this undefined feeling being hammered at beneath the surface of the film, which gives it power and illumination. And it is this

hidden message which contains the deep and moral indictment of the depravity which “La Dolce Vita” documents.

In technical excellence, the film surpasses every production this reviewer has seen, except a few of the Ingmar Bergman classics. Photography and the musical score are together almost as important as the dialogue in conveying the unmistakable attack on “the sweet life.”

This attack is also made clear in frequent symbolism, although sometimes the symbolism becomes too obvious to fit into the effortless flow of the total production. For example, in the final scene where merrymakers gather around the grotesque sea monster which represents

their way of living, and then the protagonist is called by the “good” girl but cannot understand her, the symbolism is very near the surface. Yet this tangible use of symbols might account in part for La Dolce Vita’s fantastic success. Too often the “new wave” fails through symbolism that is simply too subtle for most movie-goers.

Acting Startlingly RealisticThe acting itself is

startling realistic, and for a very good reason: many of the players are portraying themselves. The greatest surprise – and one of the greatest successes – in the film is the Swedish sex

ReflectionsEditor’s Note: The following column was first published on April 22, 1964, and was the last column written by Roger Ebert as editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini.

Twenty-four hours after this column appears, The Daily Illini will have a new set of editors. The old names will continue to appear in the masthead for a few days, but the transfer of power will have taken place, at least in the minds of our staff mem-bers. And so I thought I would use this space today to set down some of the things which have occurred to me during a year of editing this newspaper.

The Daily Illini is one of the most remarkable college papers in the nation. It is

one of the oldest, and one of the very best. For most of its 93 years, it has been one of the pace-setters in demonstrating that complete student editorial freedom can be maintained in a campus newspaper. It is one of the basic duties of each year’s staff to protect and extend The Daily Illini’s editorial freedom, so that this campus will never have to admit that its paper is controlled by the administration, the college of journalism, or any official source.

* * *Perhaps this campus

should be reminded more often that the freedom enjoyed by The Daily Illini is not very common elsewhere. The vast majority of the nation’s

1,200 college newspapers are the mouthpieces of their administrations. Most of the others have various systems of “supervision” which guarantee that nothing embarrassing to the university will appear in the newspaper. Such a system of “supervision” is now in operation at four state colleges in Illinois–but The Daily Illini, which is financially independent and self-supporting, is not affected.

This newspaper is part of a fraternity of free college papers. The fraternity is very small. Yet its members read like a list of America’s great college publications. Included are The Michigan

IN THE END continues on page 6A.

IN THE BEGINNING continues on page 6A.

ROGER EBERT continues on page 6A.

Roger Ebert’s mark on this community is permanent. The famed film critic of more than 45 years and former editor-in-chief of The Daily Illini could stipulate the success or demise of a movie with a simple thumbs-up or -down. But what he did for films, for his home in Champaign-Urbana, for his friends and colleagues, for The Daily Illini and for everyone who reached out to him was anything but simple. It was profound.

The Chicago Sun-Times announced his death Thursday afternoon, following Ebert’s 11-year battle with cancer, which left him without a voice but never without words. Ebert, 70, was the first to win a Pulitzer Prize for his film criticism and his reviews were read and respected by the millions that followed him.

Even though he found his success in Chicago, there was always a part of him that remained in Champaign-Urbana.

This editorial continues on page 6A.

He is from Urbana, and he never really left.

Ars Gratia ...

‘I’ll see you at the movies’

Daily, The Harvard Crimson, The Cornell Daily Sun, The Daily Texan, The Colorado Daily, The Wisconsin Daily Cardinal, and not too many others.

* * *On the campus, the reputation of

The Daily Illini varies from year to year. I suppose most readers are rather fond of the paper, as they might be fond of an eccentric uncle or of Lar (American First) Daly. I doubt if many readers realize the amount of time, energy and lost sleep that goes into the production of the DI.

There is, I believe, not an activity on this campus which demands more of its participants during the entire school year than The Daily Illini does. There are at least a dozen members of our staff whose jobs require a minimum of 30 hours of work a week. For most of these editors, 30 hours is just a start. During the State Tournament week, for example, the sports editor rarely sees the outside world. And, since most of the hard physical work on The Daily Illini is done between the hours of 3 p.m. and 3 a.m. the next morning, the time spent here by staff members is a considerable sacrifice.

Yet there have been editors nuts enough to go the route for 93 years, and I am convinced there will always be a sufficient supply. I think most of us spend our time working on the newspaper because we consider it to be one of the few outlets on campus for real, meaningful activity. Many of the other undergraduate activities have the quality of crayon-and-construction-paper games compared to The Daily Illini, we believe. Some undergraduate activities seem to maintain their momentum simply because social status and Greek activity points demand it. I cannot imagine, for example, how Star Course finds top leadership potential from a list of candidates who all had to start out as ushers for a year. Yet the potential is there–because the “ushers” were piling up their activity points without complaint.

* * *Against a backdrop of gally

decorated bulletin boards and cute little Burma-shave signs on the quadrangle, the production of The Daily Illini takes on additional meaning. We try to exercise influence within the

educational community at the University of Illinois, and we try to provide a consistent voice in defense of the student in such areas as housing and discipline. If we do not always get the names of all the IUSA major publicity

chairmen into the paper, perhaps that is better than if The Daily Illini were like those sickening college papers which get ALL the names in–but never print anything of substance or controversy. That, at least, is our philosophy.

In a way, The Daily Illini creates and maintains an image of the

campus. We put together a daily mosaic of events, opinions and facts in such a way that, over the period of a year or two, a regular reader can sense our general approach to this confused but dynamic campus. This year, we have been criticized for “undermining student confidence in their disciplinary system,”

and indeed the student unrest on this score does seem larger than in past years. Yet it is hard to determine how much of the change is our “fault,” and how much is simply reflected in our pages.

Such a reflection is an important part of the way we operate the newspaper. This year, The Daily Illini has printed many more letters to the editor than in any other recent year. One estimate is that three times as many letters appeared this year as last year. By printing such a volume of mail (much of it, possibly, not very valuable to all readers) we have kept a door open to the campus. They are given the space and opportunity to express their opinions–and in this way, an open forum actually does develop.

* * *These have been random,

disorganized thoughts. I doubt if I will be able to think objectively about The Daily Illini for several months. I can remember a night two years ago, when we were all standing around The Daily Illini offices waiting to learn the names of the new editors for

the 1962-63 school editor. The outgoing editor that year was Wade Freeman, and about 11 p.m. he appeared with a sign on his shirt reading, “Has-Been.”

We all told Freeman he’d be back every afternoon to see how things were going. “Not me,” he said. “Four years of this place is enough. Now I need to recover.”

I think maybe Freeman was right. The Daily Illini is a tremendous opportunity to join in the mainstream of the University. It is an outstanding example of free student journalism. It is, perhaps more than anything, exciting and challenging every minute of every day.

But eventually you get the feeling that you’ve been around long enough, and that other people are waiting in the wings with ideas that could make The Daily Illini move in directions you didn’t even think of.

I’ve got that feeling. It’s been fun. But now it’s time to be a has-been, like Freeman and Karen Lucas and 90 other DI editors. And being a has-been might be fun, too.

Tune in tomorrow for the change in program.

when he won an AP sportswriting award, one that he earned for a piece he wrote in high school, he said in a 2010 blog post.

With every accolade and accom-plishment, the list of his admirers grew.

“Roger Ebert was the reason I went to the University of Illinois. He was the reason I studied journal-ism. He was the reason why I worked at the DI. He was the reason why I became I writer,” former Daily Illini

sports editor Will Leitch said.“He was the reason why I did

everything.”Even while writing countless

reviews and keeping up with a Twit-ter account and a Facebook page, he still found time to return home.

Ebert stayed involved with what was then known as the College of Com-munications. In the spring of 1999, he hosted what was then known as Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival.

The film festival grew and flour-ished with support from the College of Media and the Champaign Park District.

Even the cancer surgeries in 2006

and the hardships the ordeal brought did not sideline his work with the fes-tival or the Sun-Times. But Smith said Ebert’s recent announcement signaled an unfortunate turn of events.

“Although he put (Tuesday’s blog post) in such an optimistic tone, I really thought he must be really sick to be tak-ing a leave of any kind. He would not do a thing like that lightly; it certainly indi-cated he was not doing well. I feared the worst when I heard that,” he said.

Ebert has reviewed over 200 films every year, writing 306 reviews last year — the most of his career — accord-ing to his blog. He watched the movies that the rest of us didn’t see or didn’t

want to. And he was excited to share those stories.

After all, that’s why he dedicated his film festival to those that “for one rea-son or another haven’t found the audi-ences they deserve,” he said in the wel-come of the first annual festival guide.

He was looking forward to a new chapter in his life.

“I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: review-ing only the movies I want to review,” Ebert said in his blog, promising: “I am not going away.”

Darshan can be reached at patel174@dailyillini.com and @drshnpatel.

goddess Anita Ekberg, cast as a “typical” American motion picture star. She plays the part with a wild, unthinking abandon which far surpasses her previous roles in “B” pictures designed primarily to exploit her impressive physical attributes.

But there can be no real award for the best actor or actress in the film, just as in a sense it does not seem to be a film so much as a simple record of “the sweet life.” The characters, in their midnight parody of happiness, are all strangely anonymous. Only their life, their society, comes through –

with a sad, burnt-out vividness that sputters briefly through a long night and then dies in the morning on the beach, dies with the sea monster who has blank, uncomprehending eyes.

In the film, the wild but bored house party comes just before the dawn. It is this party in all its depravity, which has become one of the most widely known segments of the film. Yet it is probably the one area of “the sweet life” which misses the mark for many American audiences. The scene is meant to show a last, desperate attempt to find something beneath the whirlpool of animalism which finally engulfs them all. Yet as the girl lies still beneath the mink stole, bored and restless eyes look away – still looking.

Final MeaninglessnessWe are afraid that too many Americans might

consider this scene as a sharp, immediate event. Its message, of complete and final meaningless-ness, might not come through to an audience which may not find such things particularly every day. And so, despite the almost extreme good taste with which this scene was filmed, we are afraid that many of the thousands who queued up before the theater had rather elementary motives.

This is excusable. We wonder how many years it has been since a film as intellectual and mean-ingful – and as basically moral – as “La Dolce Vita” has attracted such crowds here. We suspect it has been a very long time. The greeting it is get-ting is a tribute to one of the finest motion pictures of our time.

6A Friday,April5,2013 TheDailyIllini | www.DailyIllini.com

CHARLES REX ARBOGASTAPFILEPHOTO

In this Jan. 12, 2011 photo, Pulitzer Prize-winning movie critic Roger Ebert works in his office at the WTTW-TV studios in Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that its film critic Roger Ebert died on Thursday.

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IN THE BEGINNINGFROMPAGE1A

EDITORIAL

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ROGER EBERT

Roger Ebert had a disdain for the editorial “we,” but we stand unified in what we think of him.

We have the greatest respect for this man — and perhaps “respect” does not quite do that feeling jus-tice. Hundreds of editors and writers at The Daily Illini have looked to Roger Ebert for inspiration, for direction, as they pursue their own career paths, be them in journalism, the arts or the sciences.

Ebert’s alma mater, the University of Illinois, sits between cornfields and cow farms, far from a major city. At times, it can feel as if our diplomas will not show us an open door to our dreams, but then we look to Ebert, and we, too, might achieve greatness.

Deadspin founder and former sports editor at The Daily Illini, Will Leitch, wrote about the film critic in March 2010, “He was proof there was a ticket out. I went to study journalism at the University of Illinois, simply, because I wanted to be Roger Ebert.”

A poster of him — his smile and those eyes behind silver spectacles — is on one wall of our newsroom, but what he did for this paper is everywhere.

It was hard to keep up with the man. At 15, Ebert started out at The News-Gazette writing high school sports stories. He enrolled at the University in his hometown of Urbana studying journalism, like many of us, and assumed the highest position at The Daily Illini as the editor-in-chief in 1963.

He published one of his first film reviews under the title “Ars Gratia ...” in the Oct. 4, 1961 edition of the DI, and it shines not because it is among letters to the editor about women’s makeup and the drinking age but because the writing is indistinguishable from his next 10,000 reviews.

Ebert said that his time as editor of the paper changed him, but those closest to him then have said that this was one of the most definitive years for the accomplished critic.

Admiration and love from his coworkers in the ear-ly days was certainly not in short supply. Bill Nack, the sports editor at the DI under Ebert said, “Of all the people who worked at The Daily Illini in the ear-ly 1960s, no one brought Roger’s energy, intellect and unbridled enthusiasm to the often difficult, always demanding job of putting out a paper five days a week.”

His roots here are strong, and he has been there for us since he left in 1964.

When we owed $250,000 to our printer and other vendors, when we were behind on our mortgage pay-ments and when we were falling victim to the chang-ing world of media, Roger Ebert was there for us. We reached out to him to write a letter to a handful of our alumni to help with our deficit. The letter, which was subsequently made public first by Crain’s Chi-cago Business, helped to alleviate some of our debt.

We will forever be indebted to him. Ebert gave a $1 million donation to the College of

Media to start the Roger Ebert Program for Film Stud-ies Fund, an effort to eventually establish the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, which will house the activities of the program. He gave Champaign the beloved Ebertfest, where Ebert handpicked some of the best overlooked films.

He hadn’t spoken at the festival for years — the cancer and subsequent surgeries took his voice from him. He didn’t need it, though, to leave himself in his work, with the people he knew and with those who read his reviews.

He may have passed, but he hasn’t gone anywhere. His hometown will never forget him. We cannot. He

gave this city, this University, this paper — us — so much life, so much everything. He gave everything he could to us, often without blinking an eye.

The frontpage of The Daily Illini is dedicated to him not so much as a memorial but as a thank you.

You’ll find one of his first reviews reprinted there — it’s of the 1960 Italian film “La Dolce Vita,” and he wasn’t that big of a fan of it then.

However, he begins the review, “There is in ‘La Dolce Vita’ a great deal to be puzzled about, and a great deal to be impressed by, and perhaps a great deal which we as Americans will never completely understand.”

While Ebert was critiquing what would become one of his favorite films, he was simultaneously pen-ning one of the greatest lessons of life: We struggle to grapple with this sweet life we have been given and the options it sets before us; we don’t understand the pain we feel, the cancers that attack us, the lega-cies we leave.

A legend he became, but he didn’t see himself becoming one when he left The Daily Illini.

In his final column as editor-in-chief of the paper, he wrote that the outgoing editor before him facetiously labeled himself as a “has-been.”

“It’s been fun,” Ebert wrote in April 1964. “But now it’s time to be a has-been, like Freeman and Karen Lucas and 90 other DI editors. And being a has-been might be fun, too.”

Roger Ebert was anything but.

“I am not going away.”

In a way, The Daily Illini creates and

maintains an image of campus. We put

together a daily mosaic of events,

opinions and facts.