20 Questions: Siskel and Ebert

Gene Siskel is taller and balder than Roger Ebert, who is heavier and more nearsighted. Together, they host the popular movie-review program "At the Movies." Separately, Siskel criticizes films for the Chicago Tribune, while Ebert does the same for the Chicago Sun-Times. Bill Zehme spent several weeks trailing them and reports: "Gene likes to call Roger 'Big Boy.' Roger likes to call Gene 'Old Paralysis Tongue.' They bicker constantly and hate sharing popcorn. Nevertheless, they do have a secret handshake: They clasp each other's wrists and check their pulses. It's a beautiful kind of friendship rarely seen outside of Lite Beer commercials."

1.

[Q] Playboy: Be brutally honest. Review each other for us.

[A] Siskel: Roger is a lot of fun to be around--for limited amounts of time. He tends to hold court, and that can be oppressive if you don't like to be a subject. At the same time, he has a very good heart.

[A] Professionally, Roger is one of the best in the country. He's a wonderful writer, and I like his ability to detect structural flaws in a film. On the other hand, he doesn't understand acting at all. And he often can get carried away liking one element of a film. Roger is more likely to enjoy slapstick than he is a head comedy. He has more of a country sense of humor. I have more of an urban sense of humor. Which makes sense, since that's where we're from.

[A] Ebert: There are two Gene Siskels: sort of a Dr. Siskel and Mr. Gene. It's as if he has a work mode and a human-being mode. When he's in the work mode, he's competitive almost to a fault. He is so competitive with me, in terms of our two newspapers, that he would go to almost any length to get what he fancies to be a scoop interview with a movie star. He's cutthroat. It's fun occasionally to send him off on a wild-goose chase.

[A] When he's in the human-being mode, he's a real pleasure to have around. He turns into a big, corny pushover. The fact that he's had a baby girl, for example, has changed his outlook on things. He's a good critic and I think he has pretty good taste. If he has a weakness, it may be a kind of perfectionism that spoils his ability to enjoy a whole movie once he's found something in it that he thinks doesn't quite work.

2.

[Q] Playboy: What's his most annoying habit?

[A] Siskel: Roger is not circumspect. For example, he doesn't realize how loud he shouts at people. He's not aware of his behavior. I think I'm more measured. I talk more quietly; I'm aware of not intruding on someone else's space. Roger just behaves, if you will. That, of course, will come from his being an only child, the smartest kid in his class, a little king at his newspaper and single. He's never had anyone in his life tell him when to shut up. Whereas I come from a large family, the youngest of six. I've had my head stepped on all my life.

[A] Ebert: And I thought you were balding naturally. Gene's greatest flaw is circumspection bordering on paranoia. I love it when we're on the set of At the Movies and we're miked up. Before Gene will ask me what time it is, he will cover his microphone with his hand. I think he would feel right at home in the Soviet Union. In the bathroom, he always flushes the toilet before he clears his throat. I think he takes himself too seriously.

3.

[Q] Playboy: How about a random sampling of the all-time greatest Siskel and Ebert bald and fat jokes?

[A] Ebert: I often tell Gene that his hair is out of place. No, no, the other hair. But seriously, he is, as you know, the world's baldest film critic. Did you know that a study at Harvard indicated that thinking deeply about the movies will grow hair on your head? At least I can't be seen in satellite photographs when I'm not wearing a hat. They once took a close-up of Gene's forehead and NBC inserted it into a documentary about Three Mile Island.

[A] Siskel: It's dangerous for Roger to wear brown sweaters on the show. People flashing by the channel real fast may think that they're watching a mud slide. I have a standing offer that I'll give $1000 to the cameraman who cannot take a close-up of Roger. I frequently introduce him as the world's largest film critic. In fact, he was recently considered for an automobile ad. Yeah, it would show him alone getting out of a Volkswagen.

[A] Let me tell you a true story. Roger and I were once seated at a table in a Chicago restaurant with Jack Lemmon. An older lady recognized me and came over, asking, "Are you Gene Siskel? Can I have your autograph? This makes my day!" So I gave her the autograph. Then I said, "Look who's sitting next to me." So she took a couple of steps over and said, "Ooooh, Jack Lemmon! Oh, this really makes my day!" Then I said, "If you think your day is made, look who's sitting over there," pointing to Roger. She looked at him and then exclaimed, "Ooooooh! Buddy Hackett!"

4.

[Q] Playboy: Many people don't know that Siskel owns the white suit John Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever. How do you think you look in his pants?

[A] Siskel: I've never put them on. I didn't buy the suit to wear it. I bought it for $2000 at an auction and outbid Jane Fonda, whose best offer was $1900. I loved that movie and I wanted a part of it. I bought it for the same reason Steven Spielberg bought the sled from Citizen Kane, only he paid $60,000 for it. I don't have that kind of money to throw around. But surely any movie fan can understand the appeal of buying that suit. Right now, though, it remains in a garment bag in my closet.

[A] Ebert: Actually, the suit is at the tailor's right now, where the crotch is being taken in. Buying the suit was probably a very good investment for him. One of the great sights America has been denied--in fact, I would pay a lot of money at a charity benefit to see it--is Gene Siskel in the Travolta suit disco dancing to the hits from Saturday Night Fever.

5.

[Q] Playboy: Are the Oscars fixed?

[A] Ebert: No, they don't need to be. The entire selection process is biased toward a kind of applause for success. A box-office loser will very rarely get nominated and will never win. I lost faith in the Oscars the first year I was a movie critic--the year that Bonnie and Clyde didn't win.

[A] Siskel: The awards are overrated. Nominations can be bought with advertising. Critics have more right than the academy to pick the Oscars. They've given their lives over to films, and their choices would be based on more interesting criteria than the average academy voter's. And we have one important advantage over the people who now vote: We've seen all the movies.

6.

[Q] Playboy: Which movie star do you think you look like?

[A] Siskel: Elliott Gould. When I was younger, I used to be (continued on page 176)Siskel and Ebert(continued from page 129) compared to Jimmy Stewart a lot. But that doesn't seem to happen anymore.

[A] Ebert: Let me put it this way: I resemble a handsome Buddy Hackett. Gene is more of an ugly Elliott Gould. Actually, Gene looks exactly like George Gershwin. They have the same profile, the same lack of hair. We're often called the Laurel and Hardy or the Abbott and Costello of film criticism. We really have to thank our lucky stars that there were three Stooges.

7.

[Q] Playboy: To which movie star do you relate most closely?

[A] Siskel: I love Jack Nicholson. I identify especially with his characters in the early Seventies. I've always felt a kinship with him. Gene Hackman once told me, "I always go to a Nicholson movie thinking he knows something about life, about girls, and he's going to tell me the secret in the movie, but he never does. And I still keep coming back."

[A] Ebert: Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita, playing a gossip columnist in Rome. That character is the character in the movies most like me, not in terms of physical details but in terms of his spiritual dilemma: being torn between getting out the daily piece and writing that great novel that he knows he has in him. I'd like to write a novel someday. It would be about a frustrated Midwestern movie critic who thinks he's Jack Nicholson.

8.

[Q] Playboy: If it were consistent with the dramatic intent of a film, which actress would you most like to see shed her clothes?

[A] Siskel: Nastassja Kinski excites me sexually more than any other person in the movies today. I think she is capable of unbridled lust. And she looks great without her clothes on. I had the pleasure of interviewing her over breakfast in the coffee shop of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. I drank 12 cups of coffee and almost passed out afterward. She was not as hot in person, though, as she is on the screen. But who would be? Movie critics, for some reason, don't often talk about the erotic elements in films--maybe because they're embarrassed to admit they got sexually aroused by a movie. But, clearly, you don't get neutered when you become a movie critic.

[A] Ebert: I object to that question. You have to ask what character you would like to see drop her clothes, otherwise you're just turning it into a flesh market. I recently interviewed Joanna Pacula, the young Polish actress who was in Gorky Park, and she explained with real pain in her voice how hard it was for her to do the sex scene in that movie. As I heard the tone of her voice, I realized that it's altogether too easy for movie audiences to sit back in their chairs, like judges at a livestock auction, and watch people take off their clothes. At the point when an actress takes off her clothes, something very strange happens. We are no longer looking at a fiction film; we are now looking at a documentary. These are real people. So to sit back and talk about what actress I'd like to see lose her laundry is, I think, extremely distasteful, and I'm disappointed in Gene for having that kind of attitude toward Nastassja Kinski or anyone else.

9.

[Q] Playboy: How many porno films do you see? How would you improve them?

[A] Ebert: I see fewer than one a year. They're boring. The only thing I remember about Debbie Does Dallas is that Debbie should have cleaned her fingernails.

[A] I would improve hard-core movies by making them soft-core. Graphic detail is not erotic. What's erotic is character, situation and suggestion, along with attractive nudity. A new trend in erotic movies is dialog in bed. You get a promising situation and then the characters talk. The French know better than that. They don't do a lot of talking during sex scenes. But it's almost as if an American star can't get into bed without delivering a few wisecracks or pseudo-significant psychological insights. Eroticism comes out of situation, not dialog.

[A] Siskel: I don't go to many porno films. I see some on cable at home, but they are really kind of boring.

[A] To help eroticism, you have to reduce the number of elements: Remove dialog, put music on the sound track and repeat action. Allow people to concentrate on the sex taking place. The most erotic moments for me in movies, typically, are quiet, simple moments with more and more intense lovemaking stretched out over time. Don't cut away from the action. Let it play. Let people get into a trancelike state, into some kind of sexual fantasy. You do that by simplifying. Most porno films are over-cut. All the cutting to the various body parts, oddly enough, works against the eroticism.

10.

[Q] Playboy: How do you shut up an obnoxious movie talker or a crying baby?

[A] Siskel: The general decline of manners in society is reflected in the limited society called the movie theater. And that's too bad. Movie talkers are really unaware of how well they can be heard. My solution is to say, "Excuse me, I'm a movie critic." I show them my note pad and say, "Believe it or not, I'm working here, and if you could whisper more quietly, I'd appreciate it." People respond to that. They understand trying to make a living.

[A] As for the crying baby, that's my number-one pet peeve. Throw him out. He doesn't belong there. Hire a baby sitter or leave the kids at home alone. I have a standing offer of ten dollars to any usher who will throw a crying baby out of a theater with his mother. That's a lot for someone who gets paid three bucks an hour. I've paid off only once in ten years. So all of you ushers out there, I may be in your theater tomorrow.

[A] Ebert: I get up and change seats. People have been raised on television. They think they're home in their living rooms. Appropriate noise in a movie theater is part of the fun: when people are laughing or screaming together or when they think something is ridiculous together. But the chronic talker is an incurable condition, and the only thing you can do is get away from him--babies included.

11.

[Q] Playboy: Some critics are much more vicious than you. Who goes too far?

[A] Ebert: Critics who are cruel are probably extremely lacking in self-confidence. John Simon has as little self-confidence as any human being I've met. He absolutely vibrates in reaction to any perceived challenge to his stature. He is obsessed by what people think about him.

[A] I wouldn't name anybody else in particular. There is a point at which you are describing a movie and there is a point at which you are trying to hurt somebody. There are just too many people working on a movie to be able to single anyone out in that way.

[A] Siskel: It pays nothing to knock your colleagues, and a question such as this almost puts a positive spin on the word vicious. There are so many critics in New York that some of them--in an effort to have their voices heard--may feel a need to shout, positively or negatively, a little more loudly than they would if they were writing someplace else. And that's unfortunate, because so many of the New York critics are excellent. They have great minds and they love movies intensely. But the environment can force some of them to speak to one another instead of to the general moviegoer.

12.

[Q] Playboy: Neither of you owns home-video equipment. Are you holding out for a clearance sale?

[A] Siskel: I have an aversion to technology in general. Until last year, I had the 12-inch Sony TV set I bought in 1970. I have never owned a record player. I go out to the movies, and when I go home I prefer to read. I am just a mechanical nincompoop. I suspect I will get some of the stuff. Frankly, we need it for our work. You can study films; it's great preparation. I mean, there's a real business use here that is going to compel me to----

[A] Ebert: Sounds like you're hoping this will get into print to justify your tax return, right? Well, I'll have a lot of business use for a cassette player, too. In fact, I probably won't use it except for business. Probably the main advantage for both of us in seeing movies in a theater is that a professional projectionist turns on the machine. I don't have an audio tape deck, but I do have a turntable. I mean, I do know how to put a record on and start the needle at the right end of it. But I'm baffled by a lot of this stuff. I'll probably get a VCR, but I'm going to have to have somebody install it and paste little labels on all the buttons for me.

13.

[Q] Playboy: When that happens, which films would you most like to own?

[A] Ebert: The first movie: the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. Every time I've seen it--and I must have seen it a dozen times--it's been delightful. I'll probably buy Pink Floyd: The Wall. Also Citizen Kane and Casablanca, to watch a couple of times a year.

[A] Siskel: I'd build a collection of silent movies. I would like to study them more. That grows out of an interview I did with Fellini, in which he told me that he felt the cinema art had not progressed beyond the silent era. I suspect he's right. One of my favorite films is City Lights. I would want a copy of that.

14.

[Q] Playboy: Did you lose it at the movies?

[A] Siskel: No. What Pauline Kael may have meant in titling her book I Lost It at the Movies is that she lost her innocence. The world came rushing in through the movies. The world did not come rushing in for me there. However, there were a couple of movie experiences that told me the way the world was. I remember the anger in the sound track in A Streetcar Named Desire. I just remember people yelling as I had never heard before, because I came from a nice family. I remember the colors in A Star Is Born and the fantasy in Peter Pan and Song of the South. I remember being carried away. But I'd be stretching a point to say I lost it at the movies.

[A] Ebert: I think I probably lost more of my innocence at the movies than Gene did, because I grew up in a sophisticated but nevertheless small town in downstate Illinois. Movies were my window into the adult world. There were things that went on that adults understood, such as mixing cocktails or smoking or business meetings. But kids always felt as if the door were being closed on them. At the movies, the door was always open and you were allowed to sit there and uncritically take it all in and think about it later. A lot of us in this country got our lessons on how to behave from the movies. I Lost It at the Movies is a brilliant title not only because of what we did lose at the movies but also because of what we found there.

15.

[Q] Playboy: What about the other kind of innocence? For instance, the movie Diner immortalized the "popcorn surprise." Are there other lascivious tricks you can play on movie-going companions that we should know about?

[A] Ebert: First of all, the popcorn surprise has been around as long as popcorn. I think the ancient Egyptians had the same trick, except they used pine nuts. The pine-nut surprise. As far as I'm concerned, it's an apocryphal story.

[A] But I remember the anxiety over whether or not you were going to hold hands. You know, her hand was kind of down on her leg; yours was on your leg. An eighth of an inch by an eighth of an inch, the two hands would slink toward each other until finally one tentative little finger reached out to make contact with alien flesh. And there was a jerk. She straightened up; then you straightened up. You both looked at the movie. Then--creep, creep, creep--you tried again. They had to have double features back then, because it took you three hours to get those hands together.

[A] The first time I ever went to the movies with a girl, we saw The Bridge on the River Kwai. To this day, whenever I think of Alec Guinness, I get a little excited.

[A] Siskel: The only thing I can recall is the old stretch, where you yawned so you could let your arm drape around a girl. It's been used for years, and it works. That was one of my all-time-favorite ploys. I was always stretching in the movies. And then came the dangerous letting-the-hand-drop-over-the-shoulder, hoping to feel ... Angora.

16.

[Q] Playboy: Let's play doctor to the stars. Name patients, diagnoses and remedies.

[A] Ebert: The doctors are in, and we're g.p.s. Burt Reynolds: He could improve his career by never again answering the phone if the caller were Hal Needham, the man who makes all those movies in which Burt co-stars with the contents of Honest John's used-car lot. Meryl Streep: It's time for her to make a comedy with Jack Nicholson. Richard Gere: I think he should be assigned obligatory underwear to be painted on before he begins any movie. Woody Allen: The more autobiographical he is, the better he is. Chevy Chase: He started out as a writer, so the first time he ever stepped in front of a camera he was poking fun at himself, sort of saying, "I'm not really an actor; I'm kidding you, I'm really a writer." If he's going to go any further in the movies, he's going to have to give that up and just be an actor.

[A] Siskel: OK, let's operate. Steve Martin: He would do better as a writer; his comedies don't build. Dudley Moore: Stay as sweet as you are. I have no negative advice for him--just reach for bigger and better things. Bo Derek: I think she should take her clothes off in every movie she does. She has a fabulous body, and I would pay five bucks to see it any time. Eddie Murphy: He could do anything; his next move ought to be to take the risk and go for a more dramatic role. Robert Redford and Al Pacino: Don't try to be the head honcho; try playing a smaller, supporting role just to get back to being an actor--à la Jack Nicholson in Terms of Endearment. It was a gutsy move for a very big star, and it's going to supercharge Nicholson's career for the next few years.

17.

[Q] Playboy: How do you get perfect popcorn?

[A] Ebert: First, get a black-cast-iron skillet, the kind with a heavy lid. The heavier the lid, the more the moisture will be trapped inside, causing more succulent kernels. You have to use real butter, real salt and good popcorn. Melt some butter in the skillet, throw in the popcorn and put on the lid. The moment you hear the first eight or nine kernels pop, start to slide it back and forth on the fire. Then, when it really starts to pop, you've got to go like crazy, banging it on top of the stove. You're not making popcorn unless people in the next room can't have a conversation because you're banging that pan so hard.

[A] Siskel: I know where to buy perfect popcorn, the kind not even Roger can make. I buy it at Garrett's popcorn shop in downtown Chicago. Garrett's has never given me a bag, so this is no trade-off here. It makes very good caramel corn, and I like it hot and gooey. Then I have the clerk mix it--this is going to sound absolutely disgusting--with cheese corn, so you get a sweet-and-sour combination that's fabulous, and I love it. I buy that stuff before I go to the movie to avoid the prepackaged imitation popcorn that's been sitting for a week or more. People get ripped off in the quality of popcorn in the theaters.

18.

[Q] Playboy: Is popcorn tax deductible?

[A] Siskel: Whenever I buy popcorn, it goes right on my expense account at the Chicago Tribune. That's part of my arrangement. I said that it's an occupational hazard. I can't control my buying the stuff. The smell is intoxicating.

[A] Ebert: That's fabulous. You know, back when he was dating, he'd tell the girl, "Come on, have a popcorn and a Coke--I can put it on my expense account." The last of the big-time spenders. I don't have an arrangement like that at my paper. They said, "Frankly, with the amount of popcorn you're likely to eat, we couldn't afford to pick up the tab. We'll just give you a car." Only joking.

19.

[Q] Playboy: Why do we get the feeling you like each other a lot more than most people would imagine?

[A] Siskel: You know that old line "The more you know a person, the harder it is for you to dislike him"? That's absolutely true. Roger and I intensely disliked each other. We perceived each other as a threat to our well-being, to our professional security. And we were thrown together a few years ago, but we couldn't keep our distance. We got closer. At this point, the only person who knows him better is his mother.

[A] I wish that I got to know more people at the level at which I know Roger--because I do care for him. I would feel terrible if his life didn't turn out well, and I will gain great joy if we're both hanging around 30 years from now and having a good time. We have shared a sort of magical time together, talking about one of the things we love so much: the movies.

[A] Ebert: I would agree with what Gene said. It is true that when he started out, I didn't like him too much, because I was the youngest film critic in Chicago, the hot-shot. And suddenly they had this kid over at the Tribune--a Yale graduate, no less. Of course, that was a strike against him right away. And he was a few years younger, so I perceived him as a threat. One of the peculiar things about working in any profession is that, as you get into your work, more and more you do it by yourself. Certainly, movie critics may read other critics, but they do not collaborate with them in any way. So when we started doing this show, we found that we had never had a serious conversation with each other about the movies. I realized that I respected the guy and that I enjoyed his company. We've been through a lot over the past six or seven years. During that time, he has gotten married and now he's a parent. I've been able to share his joy over those developments. So, yes, at the present moment, I do treasure his friendship. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that we hang out together. In fact, he still has never invited me to his house for dinner.

20.

[Q] Playboy: What's the most fun you can have in the dark?

[A] Siskel: Sex.

[A] Ebert: Shouting "Start the movie!"

"The only thing I remember about 'Debbie Does Dallas' is that Debbie should have cleaned her fingernails."