Film - The Great Buster Keaton

Some of my loyal readers may have taken note that in my post about William Shakespeare's birthday, I grouped him in with a short list of authentic geniuses, including Michelangelo, Mozart and Buster Keaton.

Buster Keaton, you may ask?  You bet!

Like every creative endeavor, film has its hacks and its artists; but you would be hard-pressed to find a more creative genius in the history of film than Buster Keaton.  Not only has he been lionized by his fellow comedians, but by filmmakers in general.  He has been voted the seventh best director of all time and the twenty-first best leading man by the American Film Institute; not bad for a comedian whose greatest work was done prior to 1930.  Reflecting this, the film critic, Roger Ebert, wrote of his "extraordinary period from 1920 to 1929, (when) he worked without interruption on a series of films that make him, arguably, the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies."  Orson Welles, often credited with writing, directing and starring in the greatest movie of all time (Citizen Kane) said of Keaton's masterpiece, The General, that it was "the greatest comedy ever made, the greatest Civil War film ever made, and perhaps the greatest film ever made."

If I shared all of my enthusiasm for Keaton's work, you'd be reading a book instead of a blog.  But a little background might sharpen your own appreciation, so here's some highlights.  Keaton was a life-long performer - his parents were vaudevillians.  Buster loved throughout his life to tell the story of how he got his name.  According to him, he was eighteen months old when his father was visited by the famous magician (and fellow vaudevillian) Harry Houdini.  The story goes that the baby Keaton tumbled down a flight of stairs in front of his frightened father and Houdini.  At the bottom of the stairs, the small Keaton supposedly shook off his fall with no tears, leading a relieved Houdini to declare, "that was a real buster!"  According to Keaton's telling of the story, a buster was vaudeville short-hand for taking a fall or spill; and his father tagged him with the name.

Whether the story is true or not, Keaton was performing with his parents from the time he could walk.  Their act was a typical comedy routine that played on Irish stereotypes of the time.  Keaton's father played a drunk, who would comically knock and throw the young Buster around the stage.  It was said that the young Keaton so enjoyed performing that he would break into laughter before his father threw him, which spoiled the act.  It was this that caused him to adopt the deadpan expression he was to use so effectively throughout his career, earning him the name, "The Great Stoneface." Although throughout his entire life, Buster would claim that his father never hurt him; the elder Keaton's increasing alcoholism led the police on more than one occasion to investigate the Keatons' act.

After many grueling years in vaudeville, Keaton met his destiny in the form of his friend and fellow stage comedian, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who was just breaking into the new medium of film.  Although Keaton was distrustful of film, Arbuckle prevailed on him and he was soon a featured player in Arbuckle's short comedies (it is said that Arbuckle persuaded Keaton by letting him take home a movie camera, which he promptly took apart to see how it worked.)

Keaton's astonishing physical comedy, along with his natural affinity for the medium of film soon had him making his own comedy shorts, especially after scandal destroyed Arbuckle's career (Keaton was one of the few in Hollywood who stayed loyal to Arbuckle, helping him find off-camera film work.)  It's not my purpose now to discuss Keaton's work in depth (although if you remain a reader of this blog, you'll hear a lot more about him.)  Perhaps the best introduction would be a quick review of his work.  I was lucky enough to find this short tribute compilation on YouTube, which I want to share with you.  Two things you'll want to keep in mind; first, this was decades before CGI, so what you see Keaton doing, he's actually doing (as amazing as it may seem); second, is a story which relates to one of his greatest bits (it occurs right as his name appears in the title.)  It's from Steamboat Bill and is the famous scene were Keaton is standing in front of a house, while the entire facade falls on him (he is saved because he is standing so that he comes through a small window at the pinnacle of the house.)  This was done entirely without trickery.  The spot where Keaton was to stand was marked with a nail driven into the ground; an inch or two either way and Keaton would have been pulverized by the 4000 pound house facade.  What you don't see in the clip is that in the scene, Keaton runs into the frame and right to his spot, with the house falling a split-second later, vastly increasing that chance for disaster (it is said that when this scene was filmed, the cameraman, an old friend of colleague of Keaton's, turned the camera on and looked the other way, certain his friend would be killed.)  But as his fellow genius, the Bard said, "all's well that ends well," and Keaton went on to greater things.  Enjoy the genius that is Buster Keaton!

Two more quick anecdotes about Buster Keaton:

In the 1950s, Lucille Ball constantly consulted with Keaton about her physical comedy on I Love Lucy (he advised her to pay attention to her props, they were her "tools" he said.)

In 1952, Charlie Chaplin hired Keaton for his film Limelight.  In the film, Chaplin and Keaton perform a vaudeville routine.  The story has it that while Chaplin was funny, Keaton was hilarious, and a resentful Chaplin left most of Keaton's performance on the cutting room floor.