Surrogate Critic: Roger Ebert Has Reasons of Which Reason Knows Nothing

Roger Ebert is a curious film critic.

Sometimes I find him stodgy and hide-bound, at other times too generous and willing to let a film get by on pleas that its genre demands its insipidness.

But more than any other film critic out there, Ebert makes me feel larger in mind and in spirit, which is what a good critic (of films, literature, or even the Bible) ought to do.  He ought to help a reader to clarify his own mind.  Ebert does. 

Anyway, I loved his review, and the reasons he gives for his judgments, of Letters to Juliet.  I shan't deprive you of the pleasure of finding out for yourself what he thinks and what fearful symmetry lies beneath his thinking.  But "What am I to do?" he demands of his reader.  "I am helpless before such forces."

Which is the best reason I can think of for liking or disliking a bit of art.

And now for a non-sequitur: I wish more people would treat the Bible that way, instead of miring themselves in reverence, and a colossal misplaced piety for its alleged truth.

"No, no.  It's a wretched thing at many levels.  It's inconsistent, it's at cross-purposes, it's a mixture of intentions, it's textually suspicious and morally ambiguous; but it lives in me for reasons that are large and romantic and foolish, and, critic, what would you have me do?"

Falling in love and reading the Bible are more alike than any fundamentalist should be comfortable with.

You'd never fall in love and spend your time arguing about the merits of the person you love.

Well, you might.  But you'd end up losing the argument, if the emotion was worth the energy it takes you.

No, you have to think like a fool.