Simon Columb kicks off our Buster Keaton month with a short introduction…
In his definitive book on Silent Comedy, Paul Merton, 88-pages in, titles a chapter “Enter Buster – and Others”. Many would imagine Buster Keaton, with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, are front a centre in a guide on the era. Indeed, while Chaplin is an icon, it is Keaton who holds critical favour. The end of his life was marred by financial struggle and yet now, many consider Keaton superior to Chaplin in his intelligent direction, innovative techniques and everlasting tone of comedy. In 1917, when Charlie Chaplin was well-known, Buster Keaton made his screen debut in the Roscoe Arbuckle short “The Butcher Boy”, hence his late introduction in Merton’s book. If Keaton was told in 1917 that he would be known in the same capacity as Chaplin, he would surely laugh it off as simply ludicrous. Or he’d stare at you blankly. Or look to camera and hold an arresting-look as if to say “are you kidding me?”. Keaton wasn’t the first, and is not the foundation-stone for silent comedy, but he was a definitive cog and locomotive that pushed the medium forward.
Across the next two months, the British Film Institute host a Buster Keaton season titled A Serious Man, a Modern World: Buster Keaton and the Cinema of Today. His comedy and stone-faced theatrics have influenced the likes of Jacques Tati, The Brothers Quay and Jim Jarmusch – and here at Flickering Myth we hope to inform and celebrate Keaton’s work and influence throughout January. Many would argue his influence could go further to include Michel Gondry and his practical stunts to create surrealist special effects in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or even the dream-within-a-dream nature of Inception, surely began with Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr. as he dreams about cinema itself. Mark Cousin’s The Story of Film equally acknowledges Keaton’s cine-literate sense of filmmaking as Keaton uses cutting and editing to enhance his comedy.
Martin Scorsese, in Hugo, his magnificent tribute to cinema, used footage from Buster Keaton’s The General to illustrate how timeless Keaton’s own work remains. In context, Georges Melies prompted creativity in cinema that lasts to this day – but they are primitive methods for effects. Keaton sitting on the side of a train, carrying him in awkward fashion generates the same emotion that he intended way back in 1926: laughter.
But the sound era cruelly rejected his silent-sequences, and only when re-evaluated does Buster Keaton achieve stardom again. Jim Carrey, Jackie Chan and Kevin Spacey all note his influence and when you consider the dry, dead-pan sense of self Lester Burham has in American Beauty, or the frozen-face of Jim Carrey as he becomes the static-man in the centre of chaos, it is easy to see how.
Flickering Myth will be paying tribute to this legend of Hollywood with write-ups of his films, short films and influences – and we hope you join us throughout, either by catching the films at the BFI or watching the films on the multiple streaming platforms available.
For more info on A Serious Man, a Modern World: Buster Keaton and the Cinema of Today, visit the BFI website here.
Originally published January 6, 2014. Updated November 28, 2022.
