Buster Keaton Overview

Recognized as a comic genius equal to Chaplin, Keaton had a style that assembled as much mechanical grace and Rube Goldberg gags as the Tramp's, but without the sentimentality or didacticism. His final visual pun in "The General" -- kissing his... [more]

Recognized as a comic genius equal to Chaplin, Keaton had a style that assembled as much mechanical grace and Rube Goldberg gags as the Tramp's, but without the sentimentality or didacticism. His final visual pun in "The General" -- kissing his sweetheart while they use the horizontal wheel-joints of a moving train as a bench -- is emblematic of his Modernism, a joining of man and machine predating by several years the Czech play that gave the world the notion of robot-men. Keaton owed far less to his vaudeville upbringing than did Chaplin. His feature "Sherlock, Jr." (1924), and shorts like the "Electric House," use a much freer, often anarchic, camera style. Keaton's compositions and narrative frames create an often surreal relationship between the human figure and the surrounding topography or architecture. A master of the sight-gag, he devised and executed astoundingly elaborate stunts (he even unknowingly broke his neck falling from a water tower in "Sherlock, Jr"). Keaton had few, if any peers in the silent era. [show less]