Ebert's review of "Let's Spend the Night Together"

[Maxirad]

In his review of the Rolling Stones concert film Let’s Spend the Night Together, the late Roger Ebert wrote the following:

The worst passages in “Let’s Spend The Night Together” are the songs in which Ashby and his collaborators try to get seriously symbolic. There is, for example, a montage of images from a suffering world: starving children, a Buddhist monk immolating himself, the skeleton-like bodies of famine victims, decapitated heads of political prisoners, etc. The idea, I guess, is to provide visual counterpoint to the Stones’ apocalyptic images. The effect is disgusting; this particular movie has not earned the right to exploit those real images.

Would any CAF members agree with what Mr. Ebert said? Keep in mind that I’ve emphasized a sentence by making it bold.

 

[Mintaka]

I haven’t seen the movie or documentary or what have you, so it’s hard to say.

But in general, it’s not good to use real life horrors to make a connection with trivial matters. It’s also not usually useful to jump from the trivial to the really grim and dark.

So basically, it sounds like Ebert is saying that it was a cheap, trivial use of serious material.

 

[Maxirad]

But in general, it’s not good to use real life horrors to make a connection with trivial matters. It’s also not usually useful to jump from the trivial to the really grim and dark.

The 2003 video game Fugitive Hunter: War on Terror incorporated actual footage of things related to real-life terrorist attacks. Mintaka, I suggest you check out this review and judge for yourself whether or not the game is particularly exploitative. I have a feeling Roger Ebert would’ve been offended by Fugitive Hunter.

 

[colliric]

Roger Ebert was a very conservative, very likable reviewer that pulled no punches if a film offended him. If his opinion was that it was tasteless, likely it was tasteless.

Ebert was right when he said hidden prejudice exists in his colleagues against more crowd pleasing movies like 2005’s Best Picture winner Crash, 1994’s Forrest Gump and 1978’s Rocky, all of which won their awards deservingly being the three films that appealed more to audiences(especially the academy voters) than the other nominated films did. His main view of movies is that if a film appeals both to Critics and the general public, it should then be considered a truly good film.

He pulled no punches.

 

[Maxirad]

Check out this video containing footage from Ebert’s 1980s television program At the Movies.