Roger Ebert — Scorsese by Ebert

Roger Ebert, Scorsese by Ebert — four decades of Ebert's reviews and interviews on a single director, collected with later commentary.

Good for

Reception evidence across time from one consistent observer, which is rare and analytically useful: you can watch a critical consensus form. His first-run review of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) reads it as a portrait of an American woman rather than as a Scorsese picture — a useful control on how the film looked before its director became canonical (Values).

The collection is the natural companion to Ebert — Alice review (1974): the single review gives you the moment, this gives you the revision.

Handle with care

Journalism, not scholarship — deadline judgements, and Ebert's warmth toward Scorsese grows over the decades. That drift is itself the data; just don't mistake the later commentary for what he thought at the time.

In the library

Held in Reel, the local research library of scanned and indexed film books. 21 parts, 1,369 indexed passages. No page numbers in this scan.

This scan carries no page numbers, so it cannot be cited by page — quote it as sbe and locate the passage by searching. (Reflowable sources such as EPUBs have no fixed pagination to record.)

Strongest on

Measured, not guessed. Each figure is how much denser this book is on a concept than the library average — so common words don't crowd out real specialisms.

• Chronology — 1.4× the library average (221 passages)