The Great Buster

I became aware of Buster Keaton in the early 1970s, when THE GENERAL played on PBS, and I bought and read his ghost-written MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK. Those were the days when all we had were memoirs with a few stills. Now, almost half a century later, almost all of Buster's work is available if you want to see it and are willing to pay a bit extra for stuff that's out of print. Yet Peter Bogdanovich's documentary tells the same story now. albeit with some clips from the 1960s, and kind words from Quentin Tarrantino and Bill Hader: can't get the young kids in unless there's someone they've heard of.

I understand that. We want people to give Buster a try, and centenarian Norman Lloyd talking about being on the set when Chaplin and Keaton were working together won't do it. Also, the story as offered is a wonderful, simple one that offers a beautiful narrative: great artist makes fatal mistake, then struggles back thanks to the love of a good woman. Yet, once you delve deeper into Keaton's films and his life, it quickly becomes far more complicated than that. So what you are left with are the clips of Buster's stunts.

And what stunts they are! People may argue endlessly about who the greatest slapstick pratfaller was, but no one will ever dispute that Keaton was among the best, and because of that, he created grand gag sequences that no one but Jackie Chan has ever come close to equaling. So if you don't know Keaton, beware. The story, like all finite stories, is hopelessly simplistic and at times false -- Keaton had a lot more control over his Educational shorts than this movie would have you believe, for one -- but take a look at it anyway, for the many clips and short sequences. Because the things this movie gets right is that Buster was one of the greatest film makers of the 1920s, and a daring and enormously effective comedian and actor.

While maybe not the most definitive look at the man, this does a great job of explaining why and showing why he was so great and will leave you wanting to track down all of his movies you can. IF you've seen lots already and already love him, it's not really much new, unless you really wanted to know what Johnny Knoxville thinks... That said, Keaton was amazing so this is well worth watching.

The Great Buster (2018) -

I recently watched 'Go West' (1925) and found an appreciation for the comedy genius that was Buster Keaton within the first few minutes and by the end of it, he was my new favourite. As a result of that I was very keen to watch this documentary in order to find out as much as I could about him and the other films that he had been a part of.

It was a shame that the narrator's (Peter Bogdanovich) voice was so monotonous and dull, because the clips of Buster were hilarious and quite often laugh out loud moments at times.

The journey mostly followed a chronological direction and gave warning when it would have to go back to something for further investigation, as such it was easy to understand and it clearly showed the highs and lows of Buster's life.

I think that for me to find such joy in performances that are over 100 years old says something about the brilliance and skill of the man in question. His works have certainly stood the test of time better than a lot of others, including some of the more recent efforts from just the last 40 years, which are already dated and cringey.

There's nothing really to say about production values, etc, so this review will be finished here, but if you've ever been tempted by silent movies, watch this to see where to start.

760.11/1000.

A 2018 documentary on one of the kings of silent film Buster Keaton directed & narrated by the late, great Peter Bogdanovich. Most people will say Charlie Chaplin others my say Harold Lloyd but in many circles the undisputed silent film champ is Keaton. Tracing his roots as a vaudevillian who was the child in a family act, he soon gained the eye of Fatty Arbuckle who gave him a chance to make shorts w/his studio which afforded him to make feature length productions gaining him worldwide fame & notoriety but as bad follows good, things turn when he became a contract player for MGM. Never having owned his material didn't give Keaton the cache that Chaplin would command so his inventiveness (he was a consummate tinkerer figuring out his gags in advance) were relegated to the sidelines as his talent was further wasted when talkies took over. Happily he found appreciative fans overseas in Europe where he would be feted for his past triumphs & although later in life during the 1960's, dying from cancer he'd continue to work (appearing in some of the Beach Blanket films & tons of ads promoting different products but really a return to form as they were essentially the same kind of shorts he perfected some 40 years before). W/talking heads as varied as Richard Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, Werner Herzog, Johnny Knoxville, Bill Hader & former Pathmark shill James Karen to name a bunch, we're giving an unsung cinematic hero his due. My only complaint is the film finishes about 90 minutes in but Bogdanovich tacks on another half hour to illustrate his greatness w/a collection of his most famous sequences making this portion of the doc almost an afterthought but ultimately servicable.

People's collective sense of humor change with time. But, this reminds me of people frantically trying to keep up with technology that is supposed to make their lives easier. Just as we become more and more addicted to and dependent on technology and all its modern gadgets - we gradually lose our own resourcefulness and creativity.

This is what happened in movie industry with comedies (and not just comedies). First we had silent B&W movies where you needed to be a genius to make audience laugh with no use of sound and color, with things you could barely call special effects today and smart use of dialogues only when necessary. A while later, it was easier for actors and directors as they could use all those things to make a good movie. Need for ingenuity lowered.

Then suddenly, the only thing that worked was actors swearing in almost every line they spoke. Nowadays, almost exclusively, directors rely on swearing, sarcasm and cheap irony (in other genres blood, nudity, violence, etc.).

Need for ingenuity practically disappeared. Or do we need it more than ever?

One of such original genius of the silent era was Buster Keaton. And he pretty much did all his best work himself - he wrote the scenes, directed them, acted in them and pulled many highly dangerous stunts to achieve perfection each time. This documentary by Peter Bogdanovich (Petar Bogdanovic in Serbian - he's my countryman :)) puts the Great Buster under the spotlight right in time as the cinema is crying for it. And it will serve as a quality intro for announced restoration of the comic's top movies. Bogdanovich's choice of talking heads is questionable, but some of them are obviously selected to draw the younger audience.

It is truly a celebration of Keaton's legacy but also a reminder what the real, healthy humor is all about - not vulgarity and humiliation, but simplicity, originality and inventiveness. This brilliant comic was known as the Great Stone Face, but - as pointed out by Cybill Shepherd (and as told by John Ford once) - you act with your eyes, not with your face.

I just hope that at least a part of today's spoiled audience that only ask for new, loud, fast (and senseless) movies will recognize the great value of Buster's works - all presented timely and nicely by Bogdanovich - and discover it for themselves. I sure will, although I decided this already after watching The General.The Genius Buster - the one we need today...