Legendary film reviewer Roger Ebert passed away on Apr. 4, 2013
As most of you probably already know, Roger Ebert passed away last Thursday after a bout with cancer at the age of 70. If there is such a thing as a superstar movie reviewer, Ebert would be it. Since the 1960s he reviewed films for the Chicago Sun Times and spent years bringing motion pictures to his audience through his television programs which featured his iconic two thumbs up rating system. Though I did not always agree with his opinions, he had the amazing knack of reaching both knowledgeable film experts and the ordinary moviegoer. As a tribute to this gargantuan movie expert, I will highlight three films that he loved during my next three articles.
Ebert’s ‘10 best film list’ in 1998 was led by Alex Proyas’ sci-fi mystery Dark City. This complex philosophical mind-bender stars Rufus Sewell (A Knight’s Tale) as John Murdoch, a man who wakes up naked in a bathtub with a murdered woman in his room . . . and almost no memory. With Inspector Frank Bumstead, William Hurt (The Big Chill), tracking this supposed serial killer, along with some very creepy grim-reaper-like telekinetic aliens on his tail, Murdoch must flee his hotel room and put the complex pieces of this mystery together before it is too late.
One of the major ideas behind this storyline is the importance of memories and whether or not they can be trusted. This is what Murdoch struggles with throughout; for instance, when he tries to return to where he supposedly spent his childhood – Shell Beach, or when he must battle the idea that he is a killer. His memories continuously betray him as they have been implanted by the aliens who are searching for the human soul in the hope of saving their own race.
The man who helps the antagonists with these memory implants is Dr. Schreber, played by Kiefer Sutherland (24), who is mysteriously opaque when it comes to his allegiances. The actor seems to draw inspiration from Renfield of Dracula fame and any generic Nazi scientist, which translates into a performance that I consider to be too caricatured for this serious movie.
To round out the cast, Jennifer Connelly (Blood Diamond) plays Murdoch’s wife, Emma, a lounge singer who has been unfaithful to her husband and is trying to find him as she wants to make amends.
Another key plot device is the setting, which as the title suggests, is the dark city. Mysteriously, there is never a ray of sunlight, and this night setting is enhanced by Proyas and his set/costume designers use of 1940s vintage clothing and automobiles to bring forth a film noir vibe. This darkness is another thing that our main character questions as he tries to solve this complex puzzle.
This is a very inventive and thought-provoking film that brings up interesting questions about the human soul, memories and our existence. Later movies such as The Matrix (which came out a year later), the Batman trilogy (which shares screenwriter David S. Goyer with this movie), Michael Bay’s The Island and others, seem to have been influenced in some way by this film.
Finally, the exceptional last shot of Dark City transforms the bleak and cold atmosphere that has enveloped us from the beginning into the warm and colourful world that we know. Cameron Bailey, the artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival said that Roger Ebert taught him that movies “are human documents. They show us our soul”. It is easy to see why this great reviewer loved this film. It is a movie that studies our soul and helps us question who and what we are . . . a movie that can truly speak to us, which I think Mr. Ebert would agree is why movies are important.