2008 Woodie Awards
Actions speak louder than words at Buster Keaton film series
By: Matthew Freundlich
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Lifestyle
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The Webster Film Series preserves the legacy of one of the most undeniably innovative directors and singular artists of the 20th century with its tribute, Kompletely Keaton. Though hardly in need of more superlatives to champion his genius, Buster Keaton remains only faintly familiar those who have never taken a film
history class.
Thankfully, the ongoing retrospective offers an extensive program that showcases Keaton's considerable range, from the Big Apple to the Wild West, from bittersweet romantic comedy to bracing action. Across these fields, he chased down his main obsession and creative inspiration: man's struggle to reconcile with not just the industrial world, but physical reality itself. This struggle is the beating heart of his corpus and keeps his films pulsating with an energy that hasn't waned since their conception over 80
years ago.
Like the movies that began the series last weekend, the upcoming weekend's cluster of Keaton's films offers more of his underseen comedies. "The Navigator" (1924), screening Oct. 5, is a charming nautical-romance adventure where Buster plays a disillusioned and na've heir. He is unknowingly cast adrift upon a deserted ship with his similarly sheltered girlfriend. Alone at sea, they make due with scant resources; her general conventionality provides solid ground for his imaginative inventions and acrobatic rescue measures.
A playful self-reflexivity then surfaces when Buster delves to the bottom of the ocean to unhook the ship's anchor. First setting up a "Men at Work" sign when he reaches the ocean floor, he then takes hold of one mariner to ward off another and uses a lobster's claw as a pair of underwater clippers. Without self-impressed irony, Buster jokes us with the artificiality surrounding him, but of course without the slightest hint of a smile.
Playing Oct. 6, "Go West" (1925) might immediately single itself out for situating Buster on a cattle ranch in stirrups, but its strengths come gradually with its slowly accumulating rhythm. Here Buster plays a drifter - named in the credits as "Friendless" - who lands a job as a ranch hand. The catch is his lack of knowledge of ranch life: he uses fences to climb atop horses and shaves a cow after waiting for it to milk itself.
history class.
Thankfully, the ongoing retrospective offers an extensive program that showcases Keaton's considerable range, from the Big Apple to the Wild West, from bittersweet romantic comedy to bracing action. Across these fields, he chased down his main obsession and creative inspiration: man's struggle to reconcile with not just the industrial world, but physical reality itself. This struggle is the beating heart of his corpus and keeps his films pulsating with an energy that hasn't waned since their conception over 80
years ago.
Like the movies that began the series last weekend, the upcoming weekend's cluster of Keaton's films offers more of his underseen comedies. "The Navigator" (1924), screening Oct. 5, is a charming nautical-romance adventure where Buster plays a disillusioned and na've heir. He is unknowingly cast adrift upon a deserted ship with his similarly sheltered girlfriend. Alone at sea, they make due with scant resources; her general conventionality provides solid ground for his imaginative inventions and acrobatic rescue measures.
A playful self-reflexivity then surfaces when Buster delves to the bottom of the ocean to unhook the ship's anchor. First setting up a "Men at Work" sign when he reaches the ocean floor, he then takes hold of one mariner to ward off another and uses a lobster's claw as a pair of underwater clippers. Without self-impressed irony, Buster jokes us with the artificiality surrounding him, but of course without the slightest hint of a smile.
Playing Oct. 6, "Go West" (1925) might immediately single itself out for situating Buster on a cattle ranch in stirrups, but its strengths come gradually with its slowly accumulating rhythm. Here Buster plays a drifter - named in the credits as "Friendless" - who lands a job as a ranch hand. The catch is his lack of knowledge of ranch life: he uses fences to climb atop horses and shaves a cow after waiting for it to milk itself.
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