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-
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.
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.
There IS something very modern about him.
I saw Buster Keaton on an episode of “The Twighlight Zone.”
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
I used to get Buster K. mixed up with another actor from yesteryear: Georgie Jessel.
That same deadpan look was picked up in another generation:
Think former presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg.
Toward the finale of Johnny Depp’s “The Lone Ranger” he and the director paid tremendous homage to Buster with several great stunts during a train chase. It’s a good movie unfairly trashed by critics.
I have not heard of any of these people:
Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver to Awkwafina.
Buster Keaton everyone knows.
Buster Keaton - The Art of the Gag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWEjxkkB8Xs
