Posted on 01/24/2022 1:03:10 PM PST by nickcarraway
The silent-film star's deadpan style combined with his kinetic energy have inspired today's most acclaimed stars, from Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver to Awkwafina. Nicole Davis explores why the actor and filmmaker's style is still a fitting response to modern life.
Buster Keaton was something of an enigma to his own era. The silent-film star launched himself between rooftops, battled storms and sand dunes, boarded moving vehicles – and frequently trailed behind them, perfectly horizontal and as suspended as our disbelief – all in the name of comedy, and all while seeming unfazed. Film historian Peter Kramer, in his essay The Makings of a Comic Star, contends that Keaton's "deadpan performance was seen as a highly inappropriate response to the task of creating characters which were rounded and believable". His unrelenting imperturbability was misinterpreted as a lack of emotional expression, or perhaps acting skill.
Nowadays we applaud performances that exhibit this level of restraint, wowed by microscopic gestures that hint at subtext, but refuse to spell it out. As Slate's movie critic and author Dana Stevens points out in Camera Man, a new biography-meets-cultural-history about Buster Keaton and the birth of the 20th Century, "[Keaton] was ahead of his time in many ways". It is exactly this prescience and timelessness that makes Buster Keaton a figure ripe for reference in contemporary performance. His type of minimalism, stoicism and lyricism transcended the 20th Century, and can be seen on-screen now perhaps more than ever.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
buster was awesome- but kind of a tragic life- old stone face- loved his movies-
“…today’s most acclaimed stars, from Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver to Awkwafina.”
Most acclaimed? Who?
[[His type of minimalism, stoicism and lyricism transcended the 20th Century,]]
Wish more of it were evident today- today there is way too much overacting- way too much extreme anger and violence in an effort to ‘beef up the scenes’- it just makes it unwatchable- UNLESS it’s a movie like the kill bill movies that made fun of the overacting and violence-
by mrs Awkwafina of course- l
I’m a big fan of silent comedies in general and of “The Big Three” (Chaplin, Keaton & Lloyd) I like Keaton the best. I still remember how thrilled I was when Kino came out with “The Art of Buster Keaton” set on laserdisc. I finally got to see some of the Keaton masterpieces I had only read about.
I was on a silent movie kick a few months back. Loved Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Chaplin and my personal favorite Harold Lloyd.
Beginning in the late 1980s today’s comedies became more of a “see what new CGI we have!” That’s Comedy? I thought.
Buster Keaton had a wonderful role in Mad Mad World (1963). Spencer Tracey drove into a garage. Then Tracey backed out of the garage and drove away. Then Tracey was followed by another car. Keaton walked one way, then walked another way, paused, then walked another way, looked confused, shrugged his shoulders.
I loved the names of the boats he used in his pictures. The “Damifino”
As if it was CGI. He broke his neck doing one of those gag stunts. Specifically the famous one where he grabs a chain on a railroad water tower to escape being atop a moving train only to get doused by the water due to his weight in the chain. Funny but the water pressure was way more than he anticipated and it slammed him forcibly to the ground, broke his neck and pinned him there while he nearly drowned. He was lucky, he didn’t even know it was broken until years later. But while some of his stunts used optical illusions and forced perspective many were all too real and damned dangerous.
I agree.
Showed Harold Lloyd to my 9th grade class they were glued and very amused
That’s the test - to me.
9th grade, 10th grade boys are the funniest creatures on the planet
The most amusing movie now and from a very long time is ‘The Heat’ with Sandy B and Melissa McCarthy. No CGI. Just girls going along with a hilarious director ‘oh let’s do this, this would be funny’.
There IS something very modern about him.
My favorite Harold Lloyd movies are HOT WATER and NEVER WEAKEN. Feet First and Safety Last.
Many others I really like.
Keaton, it is STEAMBOAT BILL JR
Keaton also planned out many of the stunts for Red Sketon.
So funny. Ugh.
I saw Buster Keaton on an episode of “The Twighlight Zone.”
-PJ
He also had a small role in Norma Desmond’s card game in Sunset Blvd.
SURRISE! You thought the BBC was going to heap praise on Buster Keaton! NOPE! It was a trick to get you to read about losers like Oscar Isaacs! But no-one gives a fig about Oscar Isaacs, so they rope you in with Buster! You want the CLASSIC example of a comically stoical actor who the audience nonetheless feels greatly for, well, that’d be Harrison Ford from the Indiana Jones/Star Wars original trilogies era Hollywood critics HATED that Ford. Nope. This is about Poe Dameron’s Star Wars.
Actually, I don’t hate Poe Dameron. And I’m not one of the four people in the world who saw Llewyn Davis, the movie this article is strangely promoting. I realized my knee-jerk reaction to him was from a different movie, The Nativity Story, truly the worst bible movie ever filmed.
Oh, and there’s lots of other actors, including Kylo Stimpy. (Or is it Kylo Ren?) But mostly it’s aristocratic, “if you were cool, you’d know the movie we’re talking about” so, no, there’s no mention of Kylo Ren or Poe Dameron. This article is 0% “here’s why Buster Keaton was so great”, and 100% “here’s some movies you can name-drop to sound cool at your next conference.”
ping
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