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Buster Keaton - unbelievable talent
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:19 pm
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:19 pm
I went down the rabbit hole watching some of his stuff, would be remarkable today, but when you put him 100 years ago...ONE HUNDRED... this is bonkers.
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Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:20 pm to concrete_tiger
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This post was edited on 4/15/25 at 12:21 pm
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:22 pm to concrete_tiger
Before they nixed signature quotes, I had a Buster Keaton down there.
"There's just some people you don't hit with a pie in the face. It's as simple as that."
"There's just some people you don't hit with a pie in the face. It's as simple as that."
This post was edited on 4/15/25 at 12:24 pm
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:25 pm to concrete_tiger
Yeah, he broke his back doing the barn window stunt. Tom Cruise has got nothing on this guy.
I also liked Harold Lloyd. He wasn't quite the stunt man but his facial expressions were gold. Keaton was just Stone Face all the time.
I also liked Harold Lloyd. He wasn't quite the stunt man but his facial expressions were gold. Keaton was just Stone Face all the time.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:26 pm to blueboy
I cribbed this from the last thread we have on this:
Chaplin was just a different kind of thing (with admittedly a broader appeal). Harold Lloyd, with all due respect, just isn't in the same league as either Buster or Chaplin
Buster might be the greatest actor/director ever. What we, as a species (because of early Hollywood's outsized influence) think of as film (i.e. feature film), particularly comedies, but film in general is heavily, heavily based on what Buster Keaton understood to constitute a film.
Chaplin was just a different kind of thing (with admittedly a broader appeal). Harold Lloyd, with all due respect, just isn't in the same league as either Buster or Chaplin
Buster might be the greatest actor/director ever. What we, as a species (because of early Hollywood's outsized influence) think of as film (i.e. feature film), particularly comedies, but film in general is heavily, heavily based on what Buster Keaton understood to constitute a film.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:42 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:What acting? He just had the same facial expression all the time. I put 'Stone Face' in caps because that was his nickname.
Buster might be the greatest actor
Lloyd could do more with facial expressions than the other two.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 12:43 pm to concrete_tiger
quote:
Within a year, the Harry Houdini and Keaton Medicine Show Company (also called The Mohawk Indian Medicine Company) dissolved, and the Keatons struck out on their own. By the time Buster turned seven, he joined the act, now dubbed The Three Keatons, the main attraction of which was The Little Boy Who Can’t Be Damaged. Audiences laughed uproariously at the preposterous amount of abuse the boy could tolerate at the hands of his father, who would violently toss him around the stage like a sack of potatoes. A 1905 ad for The Three Keatons read: “Maybe you think you were handled roughly as a kid — watch the way they handle Buster!”
Kids these days are soft, this 7 y.o. took a daily beating and probably two on the weekends to put Rye and booze on his parents table
The Secret Jewish History of Buster Keaton
Posted on 4/15/25 at 1:44 pm to blueboy
quote:
Yeah, he broke his back doing the barn window stunt. Tom Cruise has got nothing on this guy.
Tom Cruise is Buster Keaton on steroids.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 1:51 pm to concrete_tiger
I love The General. This could have gone so wrong so easily. He was nuts.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 2:16 pm to Saint Alfonzo
Cruise is awesome, but he has way more safety nets than Keaton ever had.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 2:43 pm to blueboy
quote:
Cruise is awesome, but he has way more safety nets than Keaton ever had.
He's also doing more complicated stunts on a much bigger scale.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 2:47 pm to Saint Alfonzo
quote:What does that even mean? Yeah, they're prettier on film and involve more moving parts, but in terms of frequency of life risk, Buster was doing it every day with little to no safety precautions. Cruise has teams of guys who are there for safety.
more complicated stunts on a much bigger scale.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 3:09 pm to blueboy
quote:
He just had the same facial expression all the time
So, Jim Carey is the greatest actor of all time?
I said, "actor/director" - and I stand by it. For the time, it was a revolution for the lead in a film to have so much say in both the final product and every step of the way.
And it shows - a unique artist's singular vision shaped how all sorts of films continue to be made to this day. If film is a merger of theater and photography, then Buster (and a select few others) showed how it could be more than the sum of those parts, even without sound.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 3:14 pm to Saint Alfonzo
quote:
He's also doing more complicated stunts on a much bigger scale.
I guess this is like comparing fighter jocks today routinely tripping the afterburners up to Mach 1.8 or 2.0 and comparing them to Chuck Yeager.
Not that Cruise hasn't taken great physical risks to make some of these films, but Buster was doing it with zero safety equipment, more or less doing the math in his own head without computers, trial and error stuff. What Cruise and his team do is much, much more of a science than an art.
(And Cruise thinks his super-secret mind powers from Hubbard will literally protect him from harm, so there's that.)
This post was edited on 4/15/25 at 4:26 pm
Posted on 4/15/25 at 3:34 pm to concrete_tiger
His short film "One Week" (1920) is absolutely sublime.
Not a bad silent feature in the bunch. "Sherlock, Jr." and "The General" being real standouts. I'm perhaps less enthused by "Seven Chances" than most fans. Yet, I like "The Navigator" more than most. "The Cameraman" is also really, really solid. "Battling Butler" and "Go West" are mid-range. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." good, but a little uneven.
His talkie features are quite a comedown. I think "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath" and "The Passionate Plumber" are okay. But "Free and Easy" is a bit of a drag. The others fair to middlin.'
Not a bad silent feature in the bunch. "Sherlock, Jr." and "The General" being real standouts. I'm perhaps less enthused by "Seven Chances" than most fans. Yet, I like "The Navigator" more than most. "The Cameraman" is also really, really solid. "Battling Butler" and "Go West" are mid-range. "Steamboat Bill, Jr." good, but a little uneven.
His talkie features are quite a comedown. I think "Parlor, Bedroom and Bath" and "The Passionate Plumber" are okay. But "Free and Easy" is a bit of a drag. The others fair to middlin.'
Posted on 4/15/25 at 3:43 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
I guess this is like comparing fighter jocks today routinely tripping the afterburners up to Mach 1.8 or 2.0 and comparing them to Chuck Yeager.
Not that Cruise hasn't taken great physical risks to make some of these films, but Buster was doing it with zero safety equipment, more or less doing the math in his own head without computers, trial and error stuff. What Cruise and his team do is much, much more of a science than an art.
(And Cruise thinks his super-secret mind powers from Hubbard will literally protect him from harm, to there's that.)
Yeah, pretty much all of this.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 3:46 pm to blueboy
quote:
What does that even mean? Yeah, they're prettier on film and involve more moving parts, but in terms of frequency of life risk, Buster was doing it every day with little to no safety precautions. Cruise has teams of guys who are there for safety.
Plus Keaton designed and calculated his own stunts. I have much respect for Cruise, but Keaton is at another level.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 4:58 pm to concrete_tiger
Buster Keaton often imitated never duplicated.
One of his co-stars was Bartine Burkett from Robeline, Louisiana.
This post was edited on 4/15/25 at 4:59 pm
Posted on 4/15/25 at 5:04 pm to blueboy
Yeah, he broke his back doing the barn window stunt.
--
I read his biography My Wonderful World of Slapstick. He said he was quite sore after that stunt, but no mention of breaking his back.
However, he did break his neck in Sherlock Jr.
--
I read his biography My Wonderful World of Slapstick. He said he was quite sore after that stunt, but no mention of breaking his back.
However, he did break his neck in Sherlock Jr.
Posted on 4/15/25 at 5:05 pm to concrete_tiger
Making it look like he could bring a train to a stop is brilliant.
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