Roger Redux: On Play

Dear film critic Roger Ebert shook the blogosphere when he claimed that games could not be considered art because art is finite and auteur-focused, whereas the former are infinite and auditor-focused. There’s plenty to unpack from Ebert’s arguments, and more than a little generational bias. The greatest significance of Ebert’s assertions, however, is that they forced a very uncritical group of people to think critically (or at least attempt to do so) about their favorite pastime.

Roger Ebert vs. the Number

With the passing of Roger Ebert on April 4, 2013, America lost one of its greatest pop culture critics. Unlike many of his peers in film journalism, Ebert was able to instill readers with a broad sense of understanding and empathy regarding their medium of choice. Rather than seeking a broad, faux-objective schematic for his evaluations, Ebert prized the relative and subjective experience of movie-watching above all else. Despising “best-of” lists, he rated films not all against one another, but rather against those of their ilk and in the perspective of their likely audience. This often led to shocking and controversial results, such as The Godfather: Part II and The Longest Yard receiving the same three-star score.