Director's Spotlight: Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton wasn't always the listed director of his movies, but read any behind the scenes stories or biographies and it's obvious that he was the director and creative force behind everything he did up until The Cameraman in 1928. Up until that point he'd been and independent filmmaker, but after the box office failure of The General, in conjunction with a divorce and increasing alcoholism, Keaton signed a contract with MGM.

He was able to make The Cameraman, his first MGM production and last great movie, before MGM took away his creative control (his friend and popular rival Charlie Chaplin told Keaton not to sign the contract for that exact reason). MGM was paying Keaton a lot of money, they couldn't have him risking his life with improvised stunts and being his own stunt man (and on several occasions the stunt man for his co-stars). They wanted everything pre-planned and pre-approved. That wasn't how Keaton worked. He got to set and saw what was available and made up the stunts from there. If he had a block on what to do, he'd halt production and set up a game of baseball to help clear his mind. MGM couldn't have that, even from a genius like Keaton.

Keaton suffered a slow career downturn from there, never to really recover from other than to have his movies rediscovered in the 1960's and reevaluated as a genius on the level of Chaplin, maybe even above him (easily above him in my book). It's been a slow upturn since then. Though Chaplin is still more famous, because he never really went out of popularity, Keaton is now thought of as his equal (though their friend Harold Lloyd was actually the most commercially successful at the time, of the 3 kings of silent comedy). Keaton's The General was even selected as the 18th greatest American movie ever made in the 2007 AFI Top 100 list.

But what Buster Keaton gave us are the best silent comedies ever made, and some of the best silent movies ever made.


My ratings of his work:

1. Our Hospitality - 10/10
2. The General - 10/10
3. Sherlock Jr. - 10/10
4. The Goat (short) - 10/10
5. The Cameraman - 9/10
6. Steamboat Bill Jr. - 9/10
7. The Scarecrow (short) - 9/10
8. The Playhouse (short) - 9/10
9. Neighbors (short) - 9/10
10. One Week (short) - 8/10
11. Seven Chances - 7/10
12. Battling Butler - 7/10
13. College - 7/10
14. The Balloonatic (short) - 7/10
15. The Haunted House (short) - 7/10
16. The Boat (short) - 7/10
17. The Blacksmith (short) - 7/10
18. The Electric House (short) - 7/10
19. Go West - 6/10
20. The Paleface (short) - 6/10
21. The Navigator - 6/10
22. Cops (short) - 6/10
23. Three Ages - 6/10

And although Three Ages is my bottom ranked movie it has one of my favorite jokes ever: as Keaton is vying for the affections of the girl in the modern section, his rival pulls out his business card and it shows that he's the manager at First National Bank. The girl runs off with the guy and Keaton looks at his own business card and it shows that he's the manager at Last National Bank. I'm not quite sure why such a simple joke has always made me laugh so hard, but it does.