Life Itself – Seeing Jawless Roger Ebert
Get ready, because we are about to take the idea of “disturbing film moments” to all new heights. How so? Because everything on this list so far has been fiction. In this case, disturbing is real, and if you are anything like me, it will hit you like a fist to the gut.
Life Itself is a documentary about the life of film critic Roger Ebert. He was a man who set the tone for what every single one of us on this site are doing right now and a man who forever changed the way we discuss and look at films. While you may not have always agreed with his opinions, I think the best of us can admit that he changed the world of cinema.
But as you know, Roger Ebert ended up meeting a tragic fate at the end of his life due to Thyroid cancer. In the middle of the documentary, some specialists end up having to do surgery on the renowned critic, and as some of you may know, he lost his bottom jaw as a result.
Let me be clear that I am not putting this scene on the “disturbing” list because it is creepy, I am putting it here because it is disturbing in the deepest sense of the word. It is seeing another man, a man who used his voice and words, suddenly suffering and unable to do that. It disturbs profoudly, and stays with you in the same way a lingering fever does.