>> rose: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with harvard prefer stephen greenblatt, a shakespearean scholar. his new book is called shakespeare's montape. he talks about the relationship between the french philosopher and the english playwright. >playwright. >> it is a completely different strategy. so i think mont-- i think shakespeare used montape for example in trying to create hamlet, the character who is the most out there of all of shakespeare's characters, but of course is not shakespeare, it's a character called hamlet. >> we continue with nicholas wade. his book is called "inernational herald tribune--" genes, race, and human history. >> they would reject the idea that this is a racist argument.

it doesn't mean you can make any racist deductions from that. the idea of racism is one race is superior to another. >> rose: we conclude with a look at the life and work of the pulitzer prize-winning film critic, roger ebert. there's a new documentary called "life itself." the director, stephen james, a.o. scott, joins us to talk about his fellow critic, and also roger's widow, chaz ebert. >> he was a man who wanted to engender those feelings of empathy for other people. i mean, i think it's wonderful for someone who has the curiosity to know to know-- get into your head and see what it's like to be a person of a different race, of a different age, a different nationality, a different gender. un, that's a person who has the kind of curiosity that makes this world a better place. >> he took movies to be an ethical and a democratic art form. that is, that they had a responsibility.

if they have that power to take you into other people's lives and to make you feel what other people are feeling and to make you care about what happens next, then they have a responsibility to do it honestly and to do it humanely. and i think that he held movies to that standard. >> rose: stephen greenblatt, nicholas wade, chaz ebert, steve james, and a.o. scott. when we continue. funding for charlie rose is provided by the following: >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places

where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. >> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: stephen greenblatt is here. his biography of the bard, will and the world, topped the "new york times'" bestseller list for nine weeks. his latest public is shakespeare's montaigne. i am pleased to have stephen greenblatt back at this table. welcome. >> nice to be here. charlie. >> rose: why did you write

this? >> this is an edition-- the central part of this book is an edition of a particular translation of montaigne that lets you look over shakespeare's shoulder as he was reading montaigne. the greatest french writer and the greatest english writer of the renaissance encountered each other. shakespeare read montaigne in this translation. >> rose: but they never met. >> no, never met, and we can be absolutely sure montaigne never heard of shakespeare, but this is a magical-- it's a wonderful translation, and it's a magical opportunity that a colleague of mine, peter platt, and i sought to put together once again these ezas, these translations of montaigne. jon florio was an interesting character. he was the son of a protestant-- actually, began his life as a franciscan, italian franciscan. but he abandoned the church,

became a protestant, fled to england, and had a son, john florio, in england, and after a series of complicated moves in his life, the son went to oxford, and became a major figure in translation and not only for montaigne but also for italian texts, and italian sources. so shakespeare probably knew this man. may not have liked him. it's hard to say, florio, but it was through florio that not only shakespeare but virtually everyone in shakespeare's time in england read montaigne. >> rose: nice said shake spefers montaigne's best reader. >> well, extravagant thing to say, but he was certainly a passionate reader of montaigne. and a-- there was some connection between them, a surprising connection, because, after all, they're also

profoundly different, not only france and england, but an aristocrat, french aristocrat, and middle-class english playwright aren't automatically soul mates. >> rose: one is a more commercial sense than the other. >> much more commercial. had to make a living montaigne didn't have to make a living. he was a very wealthy man. he was active in politics until he retired at 38 to write his essays. but they did meet-- shakespeare met montaigne at a deep level, and nice to that extent is right. they shared skepticism. they shared a wariness about religious orthodoxy, about hypocrisy. they shared a deep sense of what the human predicament was, what it meant to face the serious issues of life and death. >> rose: tell us more about montaigne.

>> montaigne was a remarkable man. the son of a man who was already wealthy. his great-grandfather had made the family money in the wine trade. befit someone from bordeaux. montaigne was the third son. so wasn't in line to inherit either the title or the wealth, but his older two brothers died young, and montaigne found himself in this peculiar position of inheriting the toys inherit the family title, aristocratic title, and estate, chateau. he himself was involved intensely in an incredibly difficult time in france. france absolutely falling apart. it was in its-- how shall woe say-- iraq moment of bitter, murderous hatred between the prot stance and the catholics. montaigne was a catholic, but wanted to mediate, wanted to keep the peace, was a friend of

very important people in power on both catholic and protestant sides and tried his best to do something to quiet the bitterness in the country. >> rose: and you first started to read montaigne when? >> i came across montaigne when i was 20. in the fact of this translation. in england. i saw the translation because it was bound in a very beautiful college-- a college i was in had-- it had a very beautiful binding that caught my attention, and i got hooked. i got hooked because as anyone who loves montaigne knows, he speaks directly to you and shows you everything about himself. he doesn't hold anything back. >> rose: someone said he teaches you how to live. >> he does teach you how to live. or he teaches you how in any case how to live. he doesn't preach to you but he shows what you he dwhat he grappled with. he feels like he's in the room with you. >> rose: how pervasive is his

influence? >> his influence is is intermittent in england, but very powerfully influenced francis bacon, thomas brown, other people in the 17th century, all through the 18th century. but in effect, montaigne's influence extends beyond anything literary. montaigne invented for the modern world what its to be ought on biographically frank, what it is -- >> rose: it has everything, inconsistencies-- >> what he likes, dislikes, whether he likes cantaloupe or not what, sex feels like for him. what he thinks about death, what he worries about, doesn't worry about. he's completely, as far as he could-- he said he'd like to go all the way. he'd like to portray himself naked but he's not allowed. he goes as far as he can. >> rose: why was he that way? >> it's hard to say, charlie. it certainly helps -- >> rose: remind me of some

journalist i know. >> well, the funny thing about if is for a man who is in some sense willing to show everything, he also-- i think he wanted to-- he had the incredible idea, which gradually ghepped him, that he could reproduce himself, as it were, cloneally reproduce himself, make himself into a book, that he would survive death by being completely here in these words and these pages. i think that he dreamt that he would actually survive his disappearance. >> rose: through his words. >> through these words. and he came as close as i think any human being has ever come to being actually, physically, in these little marks on the page. >> rose: you feel like he's there. >> he's there. >> rose: he's there. >> and that's the opposite of shakespeare, actually, in a curious way. the opposite strategy. shakespeare was also worried about survival and was interested in survival through words.

but shakespeare is the opposite type. shakespeare-- we know almost nothing about shakespeare, despite the fact i wrote a biography about him. he's very hidden. he conceals himself. he's not out there. and yet he did in a different way find a way of transforming self into his characters, other people -- >> rose: montaigne helped him bring his characters alive. >> montaigne enabled shakespeare to figure out what it would sound ke to be authentically who you are, but it is a completely different strategy. i think montaigne-- i think shakespeare used montaigne, for example, in trying to create hamlet, the character who is the most out there of all of shakespeare's characters, the most present. but it's, of course, not shake peer poopts a character called hamlet, a danish prince, but i think shakespeare used montaigne to do it. >> rose: and how do you prove that? >> well, it's hard tore prove it in the case of hamlet. i mean, there are hints, things you could take to be finger

prints, but people-- shake spernz are always trying to prove things that are a little implausible. in the case of montaigne, there are at least two moments in which the finger prints are very clear. >> rose: king lear is one. >> king lear is one. in which shakespeare was clearly reading two essays by montaigne. an essay about old age and the relationship of parents with their children. in the essay, a remarkable essay-- both startling essays by montaigne-- a remarkable essay on the relationship of parents to children. montaigne said if a parent is young and vigorous, it's okay to hold on. but when a parent grows old, when a father begins to decline, and the son has come of age, the father should give basically everything to the son, and reserve for himself just a little bit, enough to go on, but should not hold on and hold on and hold on, because holding on

will-- will spoil the chances of the young to have a career. parents should give it away to their children. this was, of course, before universities invented tuition. but in-- the concern in montaigne's world is what it means to hold on. and you should give it up. and shakespeare quotes those words, but he gives the quotation, in effect, to the villain of the play, and a villain who says, "i hope this is not just an essay," he says. >> rose:-- >> alugd to the title of montaigne's words. so one of the things that's fascinating there about that particular moment is that i think that shakespeare must have regarded montaigne as exceptionally naive about parents' chance of getting it

back if things go wrong. but maybe it's the result of being middle class and not an aristocrat. >> rose: and you can also prove that montaigne influenced shakespeare in "the tempest. >> that's another place where there's very clearly a clear fingerprint, unmistakable pinge- fingerprint. he gives the quotation to a very charming, sweet, lovable, but actually quite naive aristocrat who doesn't really understand anything about the natives. he gives-- from montaigne's great essay on the cannibals, great essay of the encounter of the old world and the new. he gives basically lines describe, ecstatically how wonderful america was, how wonderful the new world is, and what shakespeare does is to give those lines to a character and play that has the character who is in effect an anagram for

cannibal-- caliban, who was anything but wonderful, who was the botched, drunken, murderous-- again, you can watch shakespeare take someone he loved, someone he was influenced by but actually turn it in a peculiar direction. >> rose: "shakespeare's bowoing of is an act, not of homage, but aggression." >> if you're going to swallow something, charlie, even something you love uhave to chew it up and break it down before you can swallow it. and i think that the aggression is a peculiar form. it's real aggression wurkt it's also oddly loving. it is even babies bite the nip they'll they suck on. and i think shakespeare loved montaigne, and i think he also wanted to tear montaigne in pieces. and i think that's true -- >> rose: was it simply a

mind-to-mind thing, or was there some jealousy on shakespeare's part? >> jealousy, perhaps not, but a very strong sense of here i am, a middle class fellow from stratford, from a provincial town, who is trying to make his way in london, and i have to stain myself by performing in public in the way that i do. here is this aristocrat in a chateau, in a tower, who is communing with the ancients, and who is brilliant, and who is deep, but this is not me. this is not who i am. so i think it's the meeting of two very different sensibilities. >> rose: there are some fundamental similarities. >> deep similarities, deep ways in which they saw eye to eye. i think especially in a way the belief in the power of the

everyday, the importance of living in the everyday, of understanding that, that's what you have, not dreams -- >> rose: how is that present in shakespeare? >> it's present in thousands of -- >> rose: of characters? >> of tiny touches in shakespeare as well as some grand touches, but it's present in the sense that-- in the grandest sense, in a play like "romeo and juliette" that you don't have another world to look forward to. you have this world right now. this is it. there's nothing beyond this world. but it's also present in the innumerable ways in shakespeare nwhich characters are touched by the ordinariness of life, of what it means when hal takes stuff out of fallsaf's pockets and finds candy and receipts and the triceus of the everyday, the

idea that shakespeare had of what it means to live an ordinary life in the midstoof extraordinary events. >> both were skilled at seizing anything that came their way in the course of wide ranging reading or observation. both pried the illumination of perception or a systematic thought. both were supremely adaptable and variable. both perceived and embraced the oscillations and contradictions within individuals, equivocations, iron mes and discontinuities, even in those who claimed to be single-minded and single hearted." well said, sir. >> thank you. they're both spectacular mag pies, but there's a huge difference in one respect between them art least in these regards. sharing these things, shakespeare believed in the power of stories. montaigne believes in the experiment of just laying out, without story, without narrative, without-- just what

is passing through him. >> rose: so basically, he said i don't need a play. >> i don't need a play. i don't need a story. >> rose: tell you what life means to me and, therefore, you will understand what i think about the world. and shakespeare says i'll write a play and you'll understand what i see about the world. >> i will create characters. i will make a story. i will craft -- >> rose: all the contradictions of life through the conflicts between my characters. >> exactly. >> rose: do you admire one more than the other? >> i admire montaigne perhaps more than any writer i've ever encountered. >> rose: that's-- >> he's an asoonishing human being. >> "more than any other writer i've encountered." >> he's an astonishing human being and a decent human being. but i think shakespeare's sense that montaigne has an inadequately developed sense of evil puts the finger at something that's in shakespeare

that's not very, at least visible, in montaigne. montaigne knew that there was evil. he lived in evil times. but he didn't grapple in the way that shakespeare grappled with the most terrifying aspects of the human condition. >> rose: what do you want to know about shakespeare you don't know? >> one would like to know everything about shakespeare because in fact at this point, we know-- certainly as a person, we know very, very little -- >> rose: was he a performer at the theater? >> he was, he was. but we don't know adequately what he performed in. there are certain tiny hints, but posthumous hints that he played adam, the old servant in "as you like it." that he played the ghost in "hamlet, "but we don't know. it seems he pulled back from performing later in his life, probably to concentrate on his writing. we don't know in his room quietly what he thought about

people in power. or about the religious claims -- >> rose: was he primarily interested in a literary reputation or filling the theater or making money? >> i think-- he didn't believe they were alternative visions. i think he thought making money-- which he was very interested in-- was bound up with what his long-term life-- afterlife would be. i think earlier this his life he thought that poetry probably-- lyric poetry would probably carry him forward, and he wasn't famous. he was quite famous in his own time as a great lyric poet. but i think as he developed as a playwright, he understood that his long-term prospects would be in the commercial theater, and that there was no gap, no division between doing well in the commercial theater and having the life that's led to this conversation 400 years

later. >> rose: the book is called "shakespeare's montaigne-- the florio translations of the essays, a selection." am thank you. >> thank you for having me, charlie. >> rose: pleasure to see you. nicholas wade is here. he was a science reporter and editor at the "new york times" for more than two decades. his new book "a troublesome inheritance" rejects the consensus view that race is a cultural notion without biological merit. charles merrick, coauthor of the bell curve, said the book will trigger an intellectual explosion the likes of which we haven't seen for a few decades. i am pleased to have nicholas wade back at this table. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: has it triggered an intellectual explosion? >> well, things are certainly fermenting rather heavily. i knew it would be a controversial book.

there have been some negative reviews but there have been more positive reviews than i expected. and so i think the book-- if it's successful-- it will lead to a change in attitude on many major issues, whether there's any explanatory role for evolution in our present-day societies. >> rose: do you understand when some people believe it's a racist argument? >> no, i adamantly reject the idea that this is a racist argument. i think race clearly does have a biological basis, but that doesn't mean that you can make an bracist deductions from that. i mean, the central idea of racism is that one race is spewer yore to another, and inherently superior, you can't draw that from the genome or the fact that there's a biological basis for race. >> rose: what is your argument in "a troublesome inheritance"? >> i'm basically trying to

interpret the major find being have from the human genome, which is we can see human evolution has been very recent, very extensive, and it's been regional. so it's been regional because the populations on each continent innocent have adapted to different local circumstances and this reflects the fact that we have not one evolutionary history but five, according to the five major races. q. is this some n some way athel inequality? >> i think to some extent it does explain why some societies are more successful than others. though i should hasten to say that i'm not denying the vast importance of culture. i'm just saying there is a genetic element in our social behavior, and this may underlie the fact that societies differ from each glrg so if you look at -- >> rose: so if you look at south korea, to take one

example, which has had a kind of more than economic miracle. is that an argument to be made for something? >> well, i think-- an actual experiment between north korea and south korea, so it's both exactly the same people and yet one country is poor and the other is not. so, clearly, you can't-- it doesn't help you there. i think genetics helps you in a much broader brush sense. evolutionary-- i think you can see various social transitions in human society. for example, the transition from when we were hunters and gatherers to when we were a settled society. that took about 185,000 years for us to sort of settle down. so why does it take so long? because our ancestors couldn't see the advantage of settling

down but because a change in social behavior was required. and it probably took-- because it required that long for the change to evolve. >> rose: you argue-- i quote you now, "evolutionary differences between societied on the various continentinent may underlie major and otherwise imperfectly explained turning points in history such as the rise of the west and the decline of the islamic world and china." explain that. >> well, human societies have very distinctive characters, which is-- it seems to me when you have differences that are quite long lasting, you may begin to suspect a role for genetics. and chinese society, for example, has been distinctive for a very long time, for the first civilization. and i think it's a reason to

argue it has a genetic basis. now, this is a slightly complicated argument. we're a very social species so we have many ingrained social behaviors, like very young children, before their parents have tried to socialize them, want to belong to a group, and they want to obey its rules. they want to punish people who violate the rules. so all these behaviors that probably have a genetic basis that we have not yet identified the genes, and it's social behaviors like that that underlie the institutions of our society. so the institutions of law and justice and police forces, at basis on our willingness to obey rules and enforcements. so if you-- if you alter-- if all social institutions have at their base genetically shaped instincts or behaviors that

underlie them, anything with a genetic base can be changed by evolution. so simply by changing the level of conformity, you get a more conformist society. maybe if change the radius of trust, you can sort of transition from a tribal society to a more modern society. there are many ways in which changes in social behavior underlie big changes in society. >> jared diamond said the reality of human racism is another commonsense truth destined to follow the newscast earth into oblivion." >> well, i think that is what he would like to happen. but he and many others base their opposition to racism on the idea that there's no biological basis to race. it seems to me that's the wrong way of looking at it. if you hate racism, you oppose it as a matter of principle, so you don't care what the sign says. and then you can let the signs develop as it will without imposing any ideological

constraint on it. >> rose: did you approach this with some hesitation? >> yes, i did. >> rose: because? >> because it's a very difficult and controversial subject. one risks upsetting people who have long-held views. it's a matter of principle that gets request people upset. >> rose: what's the long-held view that this upsets? >> it's a view which i think starts in the 1950s, and it was the work of an anthropologist called ashley montague, who believed racism was the basis of all evil, and that if he could-- if he could get people to drop the word "race" then he would solve all the problems of imperialism and colonialism and anti-semitism. and to a great except, he was successful. he persuaded social scientists that they should not use the word "race," or have no biological component. and this became so incorporated into the social science

attitude, again quite widespread on campuses, and in intellectual life, generally. we can just see from the genome this isn't the case. there is a biological basis for race. it's not particularly surprising. i mean it seems to match up with one's commonsense expectation. in fact, if you take the genome of someone of mixed race, say an african american, you can trace along-- you can assign each segment to an african or european ancestor, which, obviously, would be impossible if races did not exist. >> rose: chapter 8, jewish adaptations. you explain why jews of european descent are over represented among top achievers in arts and sciences. why is that? >> well, that's a question to be answered. they have made enormous contribution to western civilization, and-- there's

something here that is worth explaining. >> rose: and what is it? >> well, the usual explanations are cultural, if it was just cultural, why can't everyone else do exactly the same thing and become as successful. i think it's reasonable to ask if there's a genetic explanation, if there's something in the jewish special history, some selective pressure that has favored the emergence of unusual-- it's a reasonable question to ask, and i try and address it in that chapter. >> rose: and did you find it? well, i found what i think is -- >> rose: a genetic basis-- >> a possible explanation. >> rose: which is? >> well, it starts with greater literacy.

so in 1863, a rabbi required all male jews to educate their children, which was a very unusual thing -- >> rose: when was this? >> '63. >> rose: '63? >> yes so jews, like everyone else, developed by farming, and there's no great advantage to be highly educated if you're a farmer. particularly, it's very expensive. so many jews dropped out of judaism at that time, it seems, from the geographic numbers. and if you fast forward to the early middle ages, when trade was beginning to expand, jews found themselveses in a very unusual position that they were a highly literate population among another population, which was almost illiterate. so there's a great advantage to be able to read and write contracts, to do arithmetic, and they became the natural sort of

bankers of the middle ages which gave great rewards to people who were successful at that, and you can see how that would be a selective pressure but would have encouraged -- >> rose: one of the things you write and you repeated it here in this conversation, racism and discrimination are wrong as a material of principle negotiate science. science is about what is, not what it ought to be. its shifting stands do-- you say the injectual barriers erected to combat racism now stand in the way of studying the recent evolutionary past. how does it stand in the way? >> well, it stands in the way because if you can't-- if you can't accept race as a biological basis, it's very hard to study the evolutionary parts because the evolutionary past is the history of the separate races, separate in the geographical sense.

we've been different populations on different continents. so we each have a different evolutionary history 50,000 years ago, and before 50,000 years ago we were a single species. but if you take any species and spread it over the globe it will develop local variations, which is what we've done. it's not surprising. it's a perfectly natural process. but that is what we need to understand and it's very difficult to do so if in fact you can't say, "well, i'm studying this particular race," or "i'm studying this particular quality that differs among races." it's very hard to get a grip on the problem. >> rose: you also say researchers at present, researchers today at present, routinely ignore the biological of race or tiptoe around the subject lest they be accused of racism bah bye their academic rifles and see their careers destroyed.

>> there's an academic jungle out there, and it's very hard for people to talk about race. i found this in writing-- in reporting the findings from the genome. as soon as one got anywhere near the subject of race they stopped talk glg woow we say "race," what do we mean? >> well, of course, it's a fuzzy category because races are not separate. as soon as two races become separate, they become different species. >> rose: right. >> so our population exists in the form of several major races, and many minor ones. and in terms of genetics, it is to do with what is called alio frequency, a subtle distinction. but basically we all have exactly the same set of genes. genes come in alternative forms,

and aliels, so you might think, well, in different races we have different aliels. but even that's not the case. we differ simply in that some aliels are more common among some races than others and that's a pretty subtle difference. >> rose: the book is called "a troublesome inheritance, genes, race, and history" by nicholas wade. he wrote "before the dawn" in which james watson knows something about d.n.a. and human genome, to begin to understand how human beings evolved from ancestral hunter, gatherers into effective members of today's advanced human societies. thank you. >> thank you. >> rose: a pleasure. back in a moment, stay with us. roger ebert was one of m's best-known film critics for 46 years help he reviewed movies

for the "chicago sun times." he was the first film critic to win a pulitzer prize and the first to receive a star in the hollywood walk of fame. when he died in 2013 after a long battle with cancer president obama said for generations of americans, roger was the movies. when he didn't like a film, he was honest, but when he did he was efuguive, capturing the unique power of the movies to take us somewhere magical. in 2011 he published a memoir called "life itself." filmmaker steve james has turned it into a documentary. >> let's move on to a movie that is one the most brilliant, and unusual documentary films i have seen in a long time. >> roger ebert was the definitive mainstream film critic in american sinnia. >> he has been writing for half of the history of feature films. >> roger was a mature writer early on. >> he has written over a dozen books. >> he wrote a novel. >> he won pulitzer prize. >> how on earth did roger ebert

write "beyond the valley of the dolls." >> "beyond the valley." >> >> he was a nice guy but he's not that nice. >> it's thriller week on "siskel and ebert" on the movies and we have three new ones. >> roger ebert and gene siskel were the most powerful critics of all time. >> the perfect matching of opposites. >> even though roger wrote "beyond the valley of the dolls" gene lived the life. >> these were towering figures, clashing. >> you gave benji a positive review? >> that's totally unfair-- >> they didn't care what anyone else thought as long as they could try to persuade the other. >> this morning i confess that i am a sick person. three years ago i felt a lump under my chin and it turned out to be cancer. >> roger had an inner core made of steel. >steel. >> ask steve, he's the director.

>> he's a soldier of cinema who cannot even speak anymore and he plows on and that touches my heart very deeply. >> as a film critic he was somebody who gave life to new voices, gave life to new vision that reflected all the diversity of this nation. >> he made it possible for a bigger audience, a wider audience to, appreciate cinema as an art form because he really loved films. >> for me, the movies are like a machine that gen race empathy. it lets you understand hopes, aspirationses, dreams, and fears. it helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us. >> rose: joining me is steve james, the director. a.o. scott, the chief film critic for the "new york times." and chaz ebert, roger ebert's wife and widow. i'm pleased to have them here at this table. i was going to begin by saying what was it about movies that roger so loved. he just expressed it right there in the film. what was it about roger that you so loved? >> i so loved that he was a man

who wanted to engender those feelings of empathy for other people. i mean, i think it's wonderful for someone who has the curiosity to want to know what get-- get into your head and see what it's like to be a person of a different race, a different age, a different nationality, a different gender. you know, that's a person who has the kind of curiosity that makes this world a better place. >> rose: tony, tell me about roger ebert as a film critic. >> i had an interesting experience just this past spring. i was teaching a course to college students, film studies majors, in the history of film criticism. and we read a bunch of kind of the greatest hits. pauline kale, andrew seris, and we read a bunch of roger's pieces, in particular some essays he had written for a series of boobs called "the great movie its that he'd done. we read one on the "the best years of our lives." one on a movie called "chop shop" that he really loved.

and one on "planes, trains, and automobiles," steve mart and i know john candy. of all of the critics who i think we read in the course of that term roger was the one the students responded to the most. and they were too young to have grown up watching "civic expel ebert" or to have read the "should go sun-times." but the voice and the empathy-- i think he identifies that as what makes movies work. they're machines that generate empathy. roger was a critic who could explain and express that empathy to the regards. one of my students said it's like you're sitting next to this guy, like he's a friend of scbrurs you're watching the movie with him and he's kind of telling you both what you're seeing because he was very technically, you know, aconstitute and he understood the history and technique of cinema, but he's also telling you how the feelings are working and how this picture of huhappened that you're watching is making you feel things that you feel. and that, i don't think, goes

way. the kids hadn't necessarily seen the movies he was writing about but they could respond to these piece of writing and understand something about what these movies were doing and understand something about the person, roger, who had seen them. and i think that's a really important and rare thing for a film critic to do. >> rose: steve, you saw the person roggener a very different circumstance because you were there as he was experiencing a battle with life and death. >> yeah. well, and, of course, when we started this film, we weren't expecting to see that. i mean, we absolutely wanted to document roger's life and chaz's life with him in the present, to sort of see their day-to-day lives and to see the way in which he routinely was overcoming the obstacles of the illness and, you know, fragile nature of his health at that time. and to see his perseverance, his work ethic, and his sense of humor. and we saw all that, but we also

ended up documenting the last four months of his life. and it was particularly poignant and inspiring that none of those qualities went away, even though it was the last four months of his life. >> rose: here's a clip from the film talking about the impact that chaz had on roger, which was considerable. here it is. >> chaz was probably more life altering for him than his tv show. she really, really liked him for what he was and not who he was. >> she changed his life immeasurably. she changed his personality. hey, i was eight months pregnant and roger grabbed the cab in front of me in new york. he's not that kind of guy now. i think gene was so happy that roger found his mate. >> he was 50 years old when we got married. he used to tell me, "i waited

just about all my life to find you, and i'm glad i did, and i'm never going to let you go." i mean-- wow. you know, i don't even know what to say. i just think that love transforms a person. i think that when roger and i found each other, that i saw him-- i really saw him, and i think he saw me. and that, you know, not just a superficial scene. it was like a deep soul seeing. and it was-- you know, it was transformative. my love for him transformed him, but his love for me transformed me as well. and that's why when he got sick, that's why i was there for him,

because it just-- you know, i don't know. it sounds-- i don't know. it's hard to talk about it. but itas something that was real and it was concrete. you know, sometimes we think of love in abstract terms. in abstract you can say anything-- love is this, it's that. it's romantic. but love is also hard. i mean, when you say for better or worse, you better mean it. you know. in sickness and in health. you better mean it because it's more than a notion. it's more than a notion. to be with someone-- >> it's a commitment. >> it's a commitment. , yeah. >> rose: what couldn't you film, steve? >> well, i mean, we certainly couldn't and didn't want to film those last days. and that was never going to happen and it's not something people should see. i mean, roger was courageously open and public about this battle that he had and chaz as

well. but at some point, everyone has a need for privacy. and i think what was so remarkable about the way roger was public about the illness is that it never felt like look at me. you know, it was never like, "look at what i'm going through and how brave i am." it always felt outer directed towards people out there who might be in the same situation. and he would even make fun of it. in one of his pieces he talked about, my face, i look like something out of the "texas chain saw massacre." you would laugh at it and at the same time you would appreciate the sort of beautiful way in which he had accepted this. >> rose: i want to show two film clips. roger was on this television program many times and here is one from 1996, 1996, talking to me about movies as an art form. here it is. >> for me-- talking about you-- this is a direct quote-- no other art form touches life the way movies do. >> because it takes us inside

the lives of other people when a movie is really working, we have an out-of-the body experience. now, this is not the psychic network. >> rose: you've seen too many movies, roger. >> no, i haven't, has this ever happened to you-- come on, charlie-- you're so wrapped up in the story you really aren't aware of where your car is parked, where you're going to have dinner, what's going to happen tomorrow. you only care about what's going to happen to those people next. when that happens, it gives us an empathy for other people who are there on the screen that is more sharp and more effective and powerful than any other art form. and i'm speaking as somebody who loves to read. i love to read. but the movies do touch us more deeply, i feel, than any other art form-- good movies, great movies. >> well, i think so so. i think what he's getting at there is really the heart of his identity as a critic, which is that he took movies to be an ethical and a democratic art

form. that is, that they had a responsibility. if they had that power to take you into other people's lives and to make you feel what other people are feeling and to make you care about what happens next. then they have a responsibility to do it honestly and to do it humanely. and i think that he held movies to that standard. he did not like movies that were-- that were cruel, that were cynical, that betrayed the kind of trust that we have in them to make us care. and i think it was also i think one of the reasons that he loved movies was that they were democratic. they could be about everybody and anybody anybody. and they also had the responsibility to show the world in its-- in its variety, and people in their variety. >> rose: what was it about siskel and ebert? >> it was-- i mean. >> rose: because it's never been duplicated? >> it's never been duplicate and i have to-- it is hard. it doesn't-- that doesn't just happen. and i mean, i think some of it

is just historical has to do with chicago and the newspapers and these rifle newspapers, and i think there's a point in this movie where the people involved in the show said neither one of these guys thought other one should be on it. "what do we need him for? i'm a great film critic." and there was a tension between them. there was a wonderful and endless kind of conversation that was sometimes antagonistic and sometimes not. but that's what criticism is kind of at its heart is an argument. when you go to a movie, you come out and you want to have someone to talk to about it and you want to have someone to argue about with it-- argue with about it. and you want someone sitting next to you to say, "no, you're wrong." and they turned that into just this great theater for years and years and years. >> rose: here's roger ebert on siskel and ebert. >> he was there because we hated each other and we hate each other without any reason because we never really at the time we

did the show had any conversation at any length. he was at the "tribune" and i was at the "sun times" and when we were in the elevators we would look at the buttons. we werej6ápn competitors. >> rose: when did it change? >> we were in the same boat together. it's kind of like these geez in "the perfect storm." they hated each other but the guy would go afte got water afte other guy. you can't let your fellow sailor drown. gene and i were on the same boat for 23 years. we went through some things that were life experiences. and we had an opportunity. it was a great opportunity in our lives. i mean we were chicago newspapermen, and now we're on a national television show. how does that happen? >> rose: how does that happen. >> how did what happen? >> rose: he also went through gene's death, too? >> yes, which hit him very hard because he didn't know that gene was dying, and that's one of the reasons roger sort of said, "yes" to doing this film, this

documentary. and also, why he was so public and open about his illness. he said, you know, gene was like-- they were like brothers, and when we were told that gene was taking time off and then he was coming back to the show later, we thought that was true. and someone called us and said, you know, we think we have an obligation to tell you this. gene's not coming back. he's dying, and if you want to see him, you should go to the hospital and we were going to go but he passed away before we could get there. >> rose: didn't get to say good-bye. >> didn't get to say good-bye to his brother, yeah. so he said if something like that ever happens to me, please, don't do that. let people know. people who care about us. i don't think he intended it to be so public, but -- >> rose: you hope this film leaves viewers of the film with what? >> i hope it leaves them, number one, with an appreciation for--

i think it's life affirming. i think there's such an appreciation for life that roger shows. his spirit is luminescent on that screen. i really think so. i also hope-- you know, our love story-- i hope that that gives some people hope. i hope it makes them-- i don't know. i don't even know how to say that. but i also-- you know, family. you know, when things toward the end, you know, what do you have? roger was a great grandfather, and one of the things that really touches me deeply in this movie is looking at our granddaughter raven talking about all the things she learned from her grandfather and how deeply she was affected by his death, but also the thing they just realized recently is what a gift roger gave us to show, you know, he's looking death straight in the eye and he says, "i'm coming and i'm ready, and i'm not afraid." you know, heep is said death as

a-- he send death as a part of life. our society shuns, turns away from illness, turns away from death, all of those things. and roger said, "take a look at it and don't be afraid of it." i think that's a gift. he also was so brave, i think that this movie sort of exposes the underbelly of the brutality of what it's like to live with a catastrophic illness, because it was a struggle for him to get up every morning and do what we did. but he did it and he did it cheerfully. he did it with a twinkle? his eye. i mean, that's an amazing man. i think he's extraordinary. >> rose: and he has the legacy of his life with you and what he meant to family, but also he's remarkable because of press and because of television, and because of movies, that combination of things is always there. you can always tack a look at what roger said. you can always attack a look at the movie, as it will be with tone-- and that's a remarkable

thing that will always make them alive, i think. here's what requested life has said. this is the book. in this cannedit personal history ebetter chronicles it all-- loves, losses, obsession, struggles, recovery from alcoholism, marriage to his beloved wife, chaz. his politics and his spiritual beliefs. he writes about his years at the "chicago sun-times" colorful newspaper friend and life-changing collaboration with gene siskel. he remembers oprah winfrey and russ myers. he shares his insights into movie stars and directors such as john wayne, and martin 64 sayses, filled with the same deep insight, dry wit, and sharp observations that his readers have long cherished. this is more than a memoir. it is a straight, singular, warm-hearted, inspiring look at life itself. which is the title. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> rose: thank you for joining us. see you next time. hgáw captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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