Martin Scorsese tears up as his late friend Roger Ebert's wife asks him a question at Cannes

Martin Scorsese's latest film, "Killers of the Flower Moon," received a standing ovation from the audience at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The movie has been getting great reviews from the media and the industry alike. Scorsese has fans all over the world. However, one of Scorcese's biggest fans was known to be the late film critic Roger Ebert.

During the film's latest press conference, Ebert's wife, Chaz Ebert, talked to the filmmaker and the movie cast. She said, "Hi Marty, thank you for coming back to Cannes. It was a long time but with such a masterful film. You are a masterful filmmaker. My husband once called you our nation's finest filmmaker. It was a big story to wrap your arms around..." As soon as she mentioned Ebert, Scorsese became visibly emotional and appeared to tear up.

The video was posted on Twitter by @iamRichieOwens and has garnered over 832.8k views and 7770 likes. Many on the social media platform were moved by this emotional moment. @GreenRangerDon commented, "He was his very best friend. Still is." @Andrxrtv wrote, "Man, this breaks my heart. Almost every day I wish Roger would’ve seen 'The Irishman' and now this." @WillBiby wrote, "The kings loved each other." @rayne_alli shared, "He's just the ultimate artist and human - love him."

In a blog published on May 19, 2023, on Roger Ebert's official website, Chaz wrote that her husband called Scorsese "the most gifted director of his generation and America's finest filmmaker." She mentioned that in the introduction to his book, "Scorcese by Ebert," he wrote about why he had a lasting bond with the filmmaker due to the similarities in his upbringing.

"We were born five months apart in 1942, into worlds that could not have differed more: Martin Scorsese in Queens, me in downstate Illinois, but in important ways, we had similar childhoods. We were children of working-class parents who were well aware of their ethnic origins," he wrote in the book.

Ebert continued: "We went to the movies all the time, in my case because television came unusually late to my hometown, in Scorsese's because to begin with, his father took him, and then he went on his own, sometimes daily, watching anything and learning from it."

Chaz wrote that Ebert and Scorsese did not consider each other "good friends" as there was a professional distance that film critics and filmmakers had from each other. "They did, however, have a respect for each other's intelligence, passion for family and the movies, and a certain moral core each exhibited in their respective works," she explained. "They had an easy relationship, never trying to impress the other, but existing more as peers who both loved the movies. In that sense, there was a brotherhood that formed that both men enjoyed right up until Roger's death."

She also wrote about how Scorsese was "gracious" to appear at the American Pavilion in Cannes in 2009 to inaugurate the Roger Ebert Conference Room. In the 2014 film "Life Itself," the filmmaker spoke about getting an award at the Toronto Film Festival at the recommendation of Ebert and Gene Siskel. "He said it was at a time when things were not going well in his life, and that that event helped put him back on the right path. So it goes deeper than the movies. It touches on life itself," Chaz wrote in the blog.