Roger Ebert is widely acclaimed as one of the world's leading film critics, but since treatment for thyroid cancer he has been unable to speak. Here, he explains how he remains so positive about life

Roger Ebert, who has been reviewing movies for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer prize. He is one of the few critics to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His reviews – he still writes up to six a week both for the newspaper and his website (which receives 110 million visits a year) – are syndicated around the world. He runs his own film festival, Eberfest, and co-wrote the screenplay of Russ Meyer's 1970 camp classic, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

In 2006, following post-surgical complications connected to his treatment for thyroid cancer, Ebert lost a large section of his right jaw; he has not been able to speak, eat or drink since. This encounter was therefore conducted by email. "Your questions are provocative!" he wrote, when I sent him my queries. "I like them." A typically Ebertian response. For he is nothing if not cheery. He has written that he knows that death is coming "and I do not fear it because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born and I think of death as the same state". On the other hand, "I don't expect to die any time soon… I have plans".

Your book, Life Itself, is one of the most positive I've ever read. Is this nature, or nurture, or what? Did you simply edit out the low points?

Huh. I nearly died and lost the ability to speak, eat and drink. Those points are low enough for me. But it's true I am an optimistic person and try to deal with situations in a straightforward and positive way. It also helps that I have been lucky enough to live a generally cheerful life.

It could also be said to be a direct result of your many surgeries because you took up blogging, and thus a more personal form of writing, only after you lost your voice in 2006 – and that, in turn, led to this memoir.

Yes. I learned some lessons about being grateful for what one has. For example, after everything, here I am quite happily answering your questions.

Would you tell me a little about your writing life? It seems to me that it started out as a neat way of earning a living, but it is now almost as vital to you as the air you breathe.

I was always a writer. In grade school, I published a little neighbourhood newspaper. I was a professional journalist on a daily paper before I was 16. It's what I do. The fact that I can still do it is a great compensation after losing my speaking voice.

These past five years: you say that you are content now, that you have come to terms with the loss of your voice and the dramatic change to your appearance. But still, five years… how have you got through? What is your secret?

I had no choice. Facts are facts. You can't brood. It would drive you nuts.

Has your new face made you wonder afresh about America's obsession with cosmetic surgery, Botox and the rest?

After surgery, I was advised to not attend my own festival because paparazzi might peddle pictures of my new appearance. I said the hell with it. This is how I look. We have to grow comfortable with reality. I quoted a line from Raging Bull: "He ain't a pretty boy no more."

You write in your book that the films of Ingmar Bergman were a huge comfort to you during your recuperation, that his "existential dread" cheered you. Can you expand a little on why, precisely, this was the case?

There's that Norman Cousins [an American journalist] theory that laughter may help heal illness. It may have worked for him, but I didn't feel a whole lot like laughing. My thoughts were turned decidedly toward mortality and questions of life and time. Bergman was there ahead of me, fearlessly gazing into the abyss. When I was still in hospital, I asked for PG Wodehouse, but for the first time he didn't work for me. I found in the depths of the night that a dark novel such as Cormac McCarthy's Suttree spoke to me.

It's interesting that all the chapters in your book that are devoted to an individual are, with the exception of your wife, Chaz, men. How so?

Yes. For reasons I cannot explain, I never grew close over a long time with actresses. Nor did I find many as forthcoming as someone like Lee Marvin.

So, Robert Mitchum or John Wayne? Woody Allen or Werner Herzog?

You're expecting me to choose?

Now that, largely thanks to the internet, everyone is a critic, what is the future for criticism? Can it survive?

This is a new golden age for film criticism. Anyone can find an outlet. There are no limitations on subject or length. Such forms as the video essay are now possible.

Who are the other film critics you most admire?

Stanley Kauffmann [the veteran film critic of The New Republic] is a hero. And all the usual suspects. I'm too involved to start naming names.

Do you feel that you have erred too much on the side of kindness and generosity in your criticism?

I tend in that direction, but I'm not sure I "err". I sympathise with the effort to get a film made at all. I approach a movie with hope, not suspicion. I have an open mind about films that provide their audiences with what they're looking for and try not to be a snob about that. Still, I have a third book coming out that gathers my snarky negative reviews.

Are the movies getting worse or are those who say that just getting old?

Marketing has poisoned the environment. Fewer executives will make a bet on an original idea. Sequels and "franchises" are an epidemic. Wonderful movies are still made, but you can't believe the marketing campaigns.

Where have all the stars gone?

I know what you mean. I have this possibly loony theory that the great stars were created by the mystery of black and white. Colour makes them too real and accessible.

You're a great Anglophile, so I'm sure you know about Desert Island Discs: a guest chooses their eight favourite records. At the end, they must choose just one to take with them to the island. What are your Desert Island Movies and why? And which one would you take to watch out there, over and over?

I have a lifelong refusal to make lists of movies. But I enjoy that programme and so I will play. Citizen Kane, The Third Man, La Dolce Vita, 2001, Vertigo, The General, Ozu's Floating Weeds and Kurosawa's Ikiru. The one I'd take to the island is La Dolce Vita, because it has been a touchstone since 1962 of my own developing maturity. When I first saw it, Marcello Mastroianni was living a life I could only dream about. Later, it was the life I was living, then the life I had escaped, and now he seems to me a touching and troubled young man.

And which are your Desert Island turkeys?

Any movie with the word "transformers" in the title.

You are a passionate and lifelong Democrat. Will Barack Obama win the next election?

I think so. The only Republican with a good chance is Mitt Romney.

What are you going to do next?

Watch Tarantino's Jackie Brown again.