Ebert -Part 1

We're going a little out of continuity here in terms of who we interviewed and in what order, but that's because I don't have the raw tapes to play with and cut for you(they're currently in a dark basement editing suite where they were tape by tape re-imported to make the highest quality version of the film, pour vous). BTW, a little tangent here. The poster/dvd design is looking awesome. More news soon about where you'll be able to grab it.

So. Mr. Roger. Ebert. If you didn't know, Roger has had a tough time of it for the last few years or so. He underwent further surgery on June 16, 2006, just two days before his 64th birthday, to remove cancer near his right jaw, which included removing a section of jaw bone. On July 1, Ebert was hospitalized in serious condition after his carotid artery burst near the surgery site and he "came within a breath of death". He later learned that the burst was likely a side effect of his treatment, which involved neutron beam radiation. He was subsequently kept bedridden to prevent further damage to the scarred vessels in his neck while he slowly recovered from multiple surgeries and the rigorous treatment. At one point, his status was so precarious that Ebert had a tracheotomy done on his neck to reduce the effort of breathing while he recovered.

Which made it all that more unbelievable that he called us two weeks before the June 16th surgery (that was the day we were supposed to have originally interviewed him) to reschedule our interview. We thought he was going to push it until after the surgery, but he wanted to make sure we spoke with him so we ended up doing it a week earlier.

He was probably the most gracious person we met. He was passionate about Hughes' work, about contributing to our film and completely reaffirmed why we were making the documentary; We had gone to him hoping for some answers to our questions, but he had been left with the same questions we had.

Below is just a little bite of our interview.

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