If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.
Meaning of the quote
When a movie is really good, you get so caught up in the story that you forget about your own life for a little while. It's like you're experiencing the movie through the characters on the screen, almost as if you're there with them. You start to feel and think like the people in the movie, even if they're very different from you. This is called having a "vicarious experience," which means you're experiencing something indirectly through someone else.
About Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was an acclaimed American film critic, historian, and author. He worked for the Chicago Sun-Times for over 45 years and was the first film critic to win the Pulitzer Prize. Ebert co-hosted a popular TV show reviewing movies and co-created the iconic ‘two thumbs up’ rating system.
More quotes from Roger Ebert
No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
All over the web there are some very good critics and it’s become for people who are interested. It’s become a very good way to get to reviews and involve yourself in discussions.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Every great film should seem new every time you see it.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
By going to the movies, and because of other things, too, going to college, making a wide variety of friends, moving around traveling, I became a lot more open-minded than the heritage I was born into might have suggested.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
If a movie isn’t a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
And I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don’t just try to shut them up.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
It’s a good question, because a movie isn’t good or bad based on its politics. It’s usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
We can now have action movies with two stars where one might be African American and one might be Asian American. One of them doesn’t have to be white, and the other one doesn’t have to be the ethnic sidekick. We’re way over that. And I think it’s happening in society, too.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
A lot of people just go to movies that feed into their preexisting and not so noble needs and desires: They just go to action pictures, and things like that.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Most of us do not consciously look at movies.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
But the fact is, most people are not going to be rich someday.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Because I don’t give the studios advanced quotes or an advanced look at my reviews. I think the readers deserve to read my reviews before the studios do.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
The problem with being sure that God is on your side is that you can’t change your mind, because God sure isn’t going to change His.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can’t give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
It’s funny that there was so much disturbance about having a Catholic in the White House with Kennedy, and when we finally get a religion in the White House that’s causing a lot of conflicts, and concerns, and disturbances for a lot of people, it’s in the Bush Administration.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I don’t think Bush was legitimately elected President.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
We don’t have a lot of class-conscious filmmaking.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
The right really dominates radio, and it’s amazing how much energy the right spends telling us that the press is slanted to the left when it really isn’t. They want to shut other people up. They really don’t understand the First Amendment.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I begin to feel like most Americans don’t understand the First Amendment, don’t understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don’t understand that it’s the responsibility of the citizen to speak out.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Well, you know what, I’m 60 years old, and I’ve been interested in politics since I was on my daddy’s knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about politics.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
You can have a movie with hardly any cuts, or very few cuts, that is fascinating, you can’t take your eyes away from it… Look at some of the long takes in Citizen Kane.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I think we have to get beyond the idea that we have to categorize people.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
The Academy is paranoid about its image.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I’m kind of glad the web is sort of totally anarchic. That’s fine with me.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I think that probably the – I don’t give quotes to studios. They have to get those out of the paper or from television. So they wouldn’t have had my quote opening day.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)
I’ll tell you, I think that the Internet has provided an enormous boost to film criticism by giving people an opportunity to self publish or to find sites that are friendly.
American film critic and author (1942-2013)