OK. That might account for it, but it's not definitive. The DVD was released in April 2006. When was the commentary recorded? Was his voice altered at the time? I've heard Ebert recently, from DVD commentaries and interviews. The commentary sounded nothing like him. It wasn't just a different tone. The accent and speech pattern were different. Anyway, it was distracting. If he had explained why his voice was different, I might have believed it was him.
I had jury duty once and one of the witnesses testifying was a lady with a black eye. Nobody asked, even casually, why her eye was black. It was never explained. That made me think: these lawyers are really uncaring, or they have something to hide, or she has something to hide. It was distracting to me. When something is incongruous, it needs to be explained. Maybe her husband beats her. Maybe a baby hit her. Maybe she got mugged. Maybe someone forced her to testify...
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emmwwbbll
18 years ago
The man talking with Zwigoff on the Crumb SE commentary track is Roger Ebert. I did not notice anything different about his voice. There is no chance in hell of Zwigoff bringing in an imposter-Ebert.
In the past few years, Ebert has been through surguries and dramatic weight loss. Perhaps it affected his voice to where you noticed a change. I don't even think that a persons voice is always going to sound exactly the same, with all the same inflections, from one instance to another anyway.
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maturity
18 years ago
To say you didn't notice any difference is rather hard to believe. Listen to his commentaries for Dark City, Citizen Kane, or Casablanca. They sound nothing like the guy on the Crumb SE. Totally different accent and speech pattern. He sounded like he was stoned on pain killers, numb from novocaine, and suffering a bout of pneumonia. There are DVDs with gag commentaries. For example, Blood Simple. It's not beyond the realm of possibility.
Some of his comments seemed off the wall or scripted. You might be right, but I can't be sure without confirmation. He should put a list on his website with all the DVDs he has done commentaries for. That would be useful in itself so people could track them.
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emmwwbbll
18 years ago
I think you have just named all the DVDs he's done. Maybe he sounded different to you because he was actually conversing with someone else. It was not a one man show, he was not there analyzing the film so much.
It was not a gag commentary. Dude man, just believe me, man. Serously, make the leap. Think about it, did they ever say anything remotely funny ever? That's what I thought.
Here's a link from his site:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=FILMFESTIVALS
There are audio files on the right side from his last Overlooked Film Festival, listen to them. They're good. Play "Introduction to Badder Santa," where he mentions doing the commentery.
Have a nice day.
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