Looking Up to the Balcony

I doubt that there are many people for whom watching “Siskel and Ebert” was a formative part of adolescence, but it was for me.

When Gene Siskel died at 53 a few weeks ago, the news came as a shock. Months after his May 1998 brain surgery, in his final weeks on the show, Siskel had looked and sounded much better: not slow or inarticulate, but fresh and alert, like the man we were accustomed to in the left seat on the balcony for all those years.

The balcony is not closed yet; Roger Ebert has kept the show going, with a series of guest critics filling in. But whatever partnerships may evolve, the image of those two forthright Chicago newspapermen will always be firmly associated in my mind with the filmgoing days of my youth.

Back then, my interests set me hopelessly apart from most of my peers, a junior-high crowd for whom sports were the order of the day. What I loved were the movies. While my friends were memorizing Wayne Gretzky’s hockey stats, I was busy learning the names of every Academy Award best-picture winner.

It was a hard world in which to be a serious filmgoer. Not only were there remarkably few people to strike up a discussion with after I saw “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” but also art movies were difficult to come by. Before “Pulp Fiction” blew open the market for independent films, many acclaimed titles were to me distant treasures playing in faraway cities that, young and car-less, I could rarely hope to reach.

That was where Siskel and Ebert came in. Watching their show was the best ticket I had into the heart of the movies. Even when their picks were almost inaccessible--sleepers such as “A Midnight Clear,” or genuine left-field films such as “Hoop Dreams”--I at least had the two voices on Channel 7 to let me know what I was missing.

The voices made the difference. Other critics wrote in print, but Siskel and Ebert turned their opinions into genuine rhetoric. They gave voice to serious film fans--that breed of moviegoers who lament every “Die Hard” imitation and jump for joy when a foreign or independent film crosses over.

Nowadays, it’s easier. Since the independent explosion of the mid-’90s, more theaters are devoted to showing art films, and documentaries and exports are more available. I’ve even seen all the major Oscar contenders for the last two years. But before I was blessed with the privilege of a driver’s license, those two thumbs were the best window into cinema I had.

That is over. When Siskel passed away four weeks ago, the announcement was both stunning and awkward. It was sad to watch the first show after Siskel had taken a sabbatical, when he was too ill to continue; Ebert carried out the show alone, giving his reviews and pausing after each one, his brief silence highlighting where his partner’s voice might have been.

Two weeks later, Tom Shales of the Washington Post stepped in. He even showed enough presence to suggest that serial-killer movies and Adam Sandler comedies haven’t lost their worst enemy. Still, now that Gene Siskel has stepped too soon out the back door of the theater, I’m left with an empty feeling, and a list of memories.

I’ll remember a lot of things about Siskel and Ebert--their rapport, their humor, their combative nature--but, curiously, what I may remember the most are those Sunday evenings spent on the couch years ago, taking mental notes on what to catch on video. Back then, finding the best movies sometimes required a bit of searching. Gene Siskel might have said that was a rule of thumb.