Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert - Hardcover

"To love the movies, [Ebert] tells us, 'does not mean to sit mindlessly and blissfully before the screen.... The task of every movie is to try to change how you feel and think during its running time,' and the task of the viewer is to participate in the process. He is moral but not moralistic, preferring stories of flawed people who struggle to do the right thing and fail over simplistic heroes facing simplified choices." - Tara Ison, Los Angeles Times "As film criticism becomes more marginalized, Ebert may come to be seen as the last of a kind - the critic who actually has the power to influence a national audience." - Booklist "[Ebert's] writing is top-notch. In Awake in the Dark, Ebert has produced his most personal collection of reviews, essays, and interviews, providing insights into the man as much as the movies he loves.... This volume contains some of Ebert's most exciting writing." - Gary Kramer, Filmbill"

Roger Ebert has been writing film reviews for the "Chicago Sun-Times" for over forty years. In fact, no critic alive has reviewed more movies than he has. Yet his essential writings have never been collected in a single volume - until now. With "Awake in the Dark", both fans and film buffs can finally bask in the best of Ebert's work. The reviews, interviews, and essays collected here present a picture of his numerous contributions to the cinema and cinephilia. From "The Godfather" to "GoodFellas", from "Cries and Whispers" to "Crash", the reviews in "Awake in the Dark" span some of the most exceptional periods in film history.In addition, the extraordinary interviews gathered in "Awake in the Dark" capture Ebert engaging not only some of the most influential directors of our time - Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, and Ingmar Bergman - but also some of the silver screen's most respected personalities, including actors as diverse as Robert Mitchum, James Stewart, Warren Beatty, and Meryl Streep.America's most celebrated film critic, Ebert is a writer whose exceptional intelligence and bursts of insight have shaped the way we think about the movies. "Awake in the Dark" will be a treasure trove not just for fans of this seminal critic but for anyone desiring a fascinating and compulsively readable chronicle of film since the late 1960s.