Awake in the Dark ─ The Best of Roger Ebert : Forty Years of Reviews, Essays, and Interviews

No critic alive has reviewed more movies than Roger Ebert, and yet his essential writings have never been collected in a single volume - until now. With Awake in the Dark, both fans and film buffs can finally bask in the best of Ebert's work. The reviews, interviews, and essays collected here present a picture of this indispensable critic's numerous contributions to the cinema and cinephilia. From The Godfather to GoodFellas, from Cries and Whispers to Crash, the reviews in Awake in the Dark span some of the most exceptional periods in film history, from the dramatic rise of rebel Hollywood and the heyday of the auteur, to the triumph of blockbuster films like Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark, to the indie revolution that is still with us today.
The interviews gathered in Awake in the Dark capture Ebert engaging not only some of the most influential directors of our time - Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, and Ingmar Bergman - but also some of the silver screen's most respected and dynamic personalities - actors as diverse as Robert Mitchum, James Stewart, Warren Beatty, and Meryl Streep. Ebert's remarkable essays play a significant part in Awake in the Dark as well. The book contains some of Ebert's most admired pieces - including a moving appreciation of John Cassavetes and a loving tribute to the virtues of black-and-white films.