This piece definitely spoke to me on numerous levels. I was astounded by the story of Roger Ebert and experienced different emotions as I went through the piece. First, I was intrigued by the description of his career as a film critic and by the look into what Ebert does for a living. I was saddened by the story of how he eventually had to have his entire lower jaw removed. I was touched by the relationship between Ebert and his wife Chaz. Overall, I was amazed with this profile. I believe that a huge part of what brought me through this entire roller coaster of emotions was the way that Chris Jones used his own voice to capture the voice of Roger Ebert.
Chris Jones is essentially absent from this piece. He primarily uses a third person point-of-view to profile Ebert and rarely refers to himself. We know nothing about Chris Jones by the end of the piece; however, we feel as though we know so much about Roger Ebert. I feel as though Jones put a great deal of distance between himself and Ebert's character in the writing of this profile. However, this distance did not make the story impersonal by any means. It is almost as though Jones was creating the distance in order to make way for the hugeness of Roger Ebert and for the credit he deserved. We receive such a close view of Ebert in this piece. We feel his emotions as he feels them and as he sometimes still struggles to convey them. We experience his anger and feel him quickly grow tired in a crowded event. We are up close and personal with him, but we do not interfere with him. It seems as though this is the perspective that Jones took on when he was writing as well. I believe that Jones did an excellent job with this profile. He was able to capture the true voice of Roger Ebert by strategically using his own.
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