Siskel & Ebert (TV Series)

Stella/Heart Condition/Men Don't Leave/Flashback/Cinema Paradiso (1990)

Gene Siskel: Self - Host

Quotes 

• Roger Ebert - Host : Now, it would be easy to sneer at "Stella", I suppose, and adopt the attitude that this is a cornball, predictable melodrama. But movie material is only as good or as bad as the style in which it's realized, and "Stella" is a movie with a lot of style, warmth, and heart. It has a quality a lot of more sophisticated films lack, which is that it makes us really care about the characters. The Bette Midler performance, out on a limb and full of energy, is what really carries things along, but Trini Alvarado is wonderful too, and all of the performances in the movie find the right tone to engage us emotionally. This movie was inspired by the 1937 Barbara Stanwyck classic "Stella Dallas", and the film historian Leslie Halliwell said of that movie that "audiences came to sneer and stayed to weep." The same thing may happen this time.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I came to, uh, weep, and sneered. Uh, I, we have a WILDLY big difference of opinion on this picture. I really was unhappy watching all this, I was almost embarrassed for the people in the picture. Uh, I didn't buy a single character. They all seemed contemporary. Bette Midler seemed very contemporary. Trini Alvarado, in particular, seemed like a high energy attractive woman of the late '80s/early '90s, and in this picture, it's all photographed and stylized as some kind of '50s or '40s melodrama, and I didn't think it worked. I never believed Stephen Collins would be the least interested in Bette Midler. I don't understand why they got married in the first place...

  Roger Ebert - Host : They DIDN'T get married.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I, I mean, why they had the relationship in the first place. It, none of it worked.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well, to some degree, Gene, I think you have to be a little bit forthcoming when you come to a movie like this. This IS a tearjerker, weepy melodrama. That's what it is.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I WANTED it to be that!

  Roger Ebert - Host : That's what it's intended to be. The people in it are very likable, the situation is not believable, it's not supposed to be believable. It's supposed to be manipulative. Either you're going to go with it and allow it to have this effect on you, or not. Now, I loved these people. I thought Midler's performance had so much, it had a flair to it. I mean, the timing, the way she carried herself, the way she talked.

  Gene Siskel - Host : She seems like she's role-playing some xerox fale- pale xerox copy of Stella Dallas, the old '40s heroine who's gonna be plucky and survive.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I don't know...

  Gene Siskel - Host : I laughed at the movie!

  Roger Ebert - Host : One thing I do not to, ever, so I'm gonna break my own rule and do it right now is, I never review the audience.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Right.

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm gonna tell you, when I saw this movie at a sneak preview, everybody in the theater was blowing their noses, honking...

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well there's a lot of flu going around.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Holding hands.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Lot of flu going around.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Oh Gene, now come on. People were really emotionally...

  Gene Siskel - Host : I'm not gonna retreat into the audience. I laughed at the picture. And I heard some echoes.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well, I had a good time, and you caught flu.

• Roger Ebert - Host : There are actually certain similarities between "Men Don't Leave" and "Stella". Both are manipulative tearjerkers, but while "Stella" has the courage to admit it and go for it, "Men Don't Leave" is all cluttered up with the debris of unnecessary realism. It pretends to be a lot more sophisticated than it's really willing to be. Jessica Lange is actually very likable in this movie, but the screenplay is a mess, a thicket of false starts and dead ends, and the movie's unconvincing happy ending feels like it got that way only because they left out about three crucial scenes at the conclusion of the film. Among the many questions I have about this movie are: I doubt if a fourth grader could ride his bicycle and ride a freight train out of Baltimore and wind up in a small town a two-hour drive away. I doubt that hot air balloon rides are an instant cure for manic depression. And I also doubt that many women in this predicament would be able to find a man who is infinitely gentle, understanding, laid back, and saintly. I just... find that hard to believe.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, this is sort of classic. We just gotta preserve this show, if only to say, I declare that THIS is the good, really fine movie, and that "Stella" is worthless.

  Roger Ebert - Host : You're JOKING.

  Gene Siskel - Host : That is exactly the way I saw these two pictures. If they're gonna, if people ever, you know, they always want to know about our relationship, and what we are like. Look at these two pictures and see what you think. That's what we're really like. 'Cause- because, this picture, to me, IS life-like. This IS tough. There's a heartbreaking scene where the little- the older boy, the seventeen year old, um, wants that man to come back into his mother's life. And it's a beautiful scene. I defy you not to be emotionally moved by that scene. In fact, I'm gonna ask you: Were you emotionally moved by that scene, where he pleads for the guy to come back and be friends with his mom?

  Roger Ebert - Host : I liked that scene.

  Gene Siskel - Host : All right, that's a good scene.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Yeah, I did like that scene. But Gene, just a second now.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Yeah.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Here's the problem here: You say this movie is realistic, I say "Stella" and this movie are EQUALLY manipulative and artificial, but that "Stella" has the honesty to say...

  Gene Siskel - Host : I heard you say that.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...That it is a tearjerker. This movie, which pretends to be this sociological study of this person, is more of a fantasy, really, than "Stella". I mean, come on, this is the "unmarried woman syndrome", where the woman is alone, and who does she meet but the greatest guy in the world. You know?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Except...

  Roger Ebert - Host : And he's understanding and he's there for her and he's always just perfect.

  [stammering] 

  Roger Ebert - Host : I'm surprised you couldn't see them pushing your buttons all during the movie.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I was enjoying the story...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Getting your buttons pushed.

  Gene Siskel - Host : No no, because I didn't expect, in this kind of story, to find the Joan Cusack character. I didn't expect to find...

  Roger Ebert - Host : Well what happens at the end?

  Gene Siskel - Host : Wait a second...

  Roger Ebert - Host : You can't even TELL me what happens at the end of this movie!

  Gene Siskel - Host : Oh, life goes on.

  Roger Ebert - Host : "Life goes on."

  Gene Siskel - Host : And that's exactly what happens.

  Roger Ebert - Host : Does she- do they get the money from the, uh, from the lottery, or not? Is she really...

  Gene Siskel - Host : No. No.

  Roger Ebert - Host : ...The partner of that woman in the bakery? Where'd she get her new clothes? Where'd she get her hairdo? Does she even have a job?

  Gene Siskel - Host : She's gonna have a job...

  Roger Ebert - Host : We don't know ANY of that stuff!

  Gene Siskel - Host : She's gonna have a job...

  Roger Ebert - Host : There are scenes missing right and left!

  Gene Siskel - Host : Roger, you don't know what's gonna happen in the future.

  Roger Ebert - Host : What about her depression? That's it? You have deep depression, you go on a hot air balloon and the depression goes away?

  Gene Siskel - Host : She's gonna have a depression later.

  Roger Ebert - Host : This, Gene, this was JUST as much a soap opera, it's just not honest enough to say so.

  Gene Siskel - Host : No, I- I think it's not even the, the same kind of soap opera. I think this is patches of realism and wild comedy, directed by the guy who did "Risky Business", another good film.

  Roger Ebert - Host : A REAL disappointment.

  Gene Siskel - Host : I liked this picture a lot.

• Gene Siskel - Host : [after the recap]  And I really recommend "Men Don't Leave".

  Roger Ebert - Host : And I recommend "Stella", and it's a total complete basic fundamental difference between the two of us.

  Gene Siskel - Host : You bet.

  Roger Ebert - Host : And you know, if anybody sees both movies, I'd like to hear from them. Write care of your local station, I'd like to see what's in the mail.

  Gene Siskel - Host : Well, we both know that they'll see one good movie.