Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (1895-1966) although understated, developed the portrait of the artist as the ever struggling diminutive man in a world colossal, one with seemingly insurmountable obstacles that he alone would have to contend with, and where he would almost always win the day. But it would never come easy, his was an endless hustle. Often the characters of Keaton would be seen in an absolutely ludicrous situation, where either he would appear lost (or in some cases actually was) and in these he would stand in characteristic pose, as if he were born poker-faced surveying the great horizon as one hand over eye, a makeshift shield from the rays of the sun. Keaton also displayed a compulsion for all things gadget oriented, and in many a two-reeler and feature would solely revolve around machinery.
In 1923's Our Hospitality and in The General (1926) the locomotive was practically the best supporting actor. In The Navigator (1924) there is an ocean liner that could have literally robbed a scene or three from the actor - had he not been so utterly enmeshed in it. And this kind of material would not be all Keaton had under his hat. In the vein of Harold Lloyd, he was the consummate master of developing a long, extensive string of gags that were derived from an everyday basic situation. Controlling the overall production of his films until the end of the 1920s, Keaton would enjoy a popularity that was second only to that of Lloyd's. But in actuality, after this period came to its close, Keaton's films would never again manage to reflect the sheer uncluttered exuberance of his comic timing and his magical visual sense.
 |
| Feats don't fail him now... |
The hallmark of a Keaton comedy is the unwavering energy of its central character, all the animation that the others display and emote on their faces being expressed by Buster in a headlong ballet of the acrobat, which he always performed himself, in long-shot and without any such cuts. There is trickery about the log-bouncing sequence in The General, or Buster's high dive from the top of the ship in The Navigator, or the vaulting ease in which he skims down the riverboat docks in Steamboat Bill Jr (1928) and back all the way up again, he would go, just a moment later. In Edward Sedgwick's 1929 comedy Spite Marriage, one single shot follows Keaton's embarking of a desperate battle with a villain from one end of the luxury yacht to the other where flung into the deep blue sea, he is taken by its current and carried back to the lifeboat, trailing at the stern, then hauling himself up over the side in order to resume the struggle once again. Keaton made no bones about actually breaking every isolated bone in his body over the span of his career. In The Paleface (1921) he would drop a gobsmacking eighty-five feet from a suspension bridge plunging high velocity from the sky into all but a flimsy net; he came within a hair of being drowned under a waterfall in Our Hospitality; and during the infamous train scene in 1924's Sherlock Jr, it would be here that Keaton literally broke his neck and even after an injury of this proportion and the blinding headaches that he suffered in the aftermath of the accident, he would continue stunting and filming.
 |
| Keaton was anything but general in The General. |
Nevertheless, it is not as a stuntman per se, but as an unusual breed of tragi-comedy personality that he survives as the most fascinating of the silent comedians. And I will add that his was a modest genius. As if pursuing his own redefinition of his own personal experience, his films testify to the purgatorial quandaries of an inconsequential reject, habitually brow-beaten by a scornful father or disdainfully ignored by a less than appreciative girl, who by fierce persistence and ingenious bravery (physical danger is no object to the chap) battles his way to social embrace. In his tenacious war against the nefarious forces that be, his endurance in restoring the rightness of things and his face, enigmatic and one that never gives the secrets away - no promises and no denials - he is one of the screen's great martyrs. Yet at the same time, he has an ironic gift for adapting technology to provide unexpected comforts. For instance, a swordfish is once used as protection, a boiler becomes a bedroom and a lobster pot is then an egg-holder in the staggering The Navigator. Lazy tongs are utilized as a traffic indicator and a telephone for controlling a horse in Cops (1922), and can whip up a brisk asbestos suit as a means to survive burning at the stake in The Paleface. As almost as for reward in its own ingenuity, and for his inherent innocence. Providence is surely on Buster's side and does carry him to safety, both magically and placidly off, whisked away on an airborne boat at the end of The Balloonatic (1923), or shopping the two-ton facade of a building over his body - he stands exactly where an empty window-frame drops over him and this leaves him dusty albeit unscathed yet again, as can be seen in Steamboat Bill Jr.