Keaton books

[silent-partner]

Over the holidays I bought Daniel Moews 'KEATON The Silent Features Close Up' (1977 University of California Press).
Could someone please translate the following paragraph;
...."A general critical essay, it covers many topics, though its main concern seems to be a dialectical interpretation of Keaton's "world action," a positive philosiphical pattern in his films, underlying character, activities, and some gags, which proceeds from affirmation through negation to a final triumphant affirmative negation of negation. This central idea seems to me valid and possibly even heuristic, capable of sustaining an elaborate and significant analysis......."(page 317)

What the **** does that even mean? Is he speaking English?
A postage paid copy of Kino's Stan Laural V. 2 to the first person that can make me understand what in the hell Moew's failed to say in an breviloquent yet still a compendiary way.

[Richard M Roberts]

Over the holidays I bought Daniel Moews 'KEATON The Silent Features Close Up' (1977 University of California Press).
Could someone please translate the following paragraph;
...."A general critical essay, it covers many topics, though its main concern seems to be a dialectical interpretation of Keaton's "world action," a positive philosiphical pattern in his films, underlying character, activities, and some gags, which proceeds from affirmation through negation to a final triumphant affirmative negation of negation. This central idea seems to me valid and possibly even heuristic, capable of sustaining an elaborate and significant analysis......."(page 317)

What the **** does that even mean? Is he speaking English?
A postage paid copy of Kino's Stan Laural V. 2 to the first person that can make me understand what in the hell Moew's failed to say in an breviloquent yet still a compendiary way.

It means: Daniel Moews will tell you all the gags and plot of the Keaton features in such a pretentious manner that it drains all humor from them, but can actually spoil your suprise and enjoyment if you ever watch the films after reading it. He will also tell you how you should interpret what you are watching and what you are laughing at, without too much genuine historical research involved in a manner designed to make you think how clever and college-educated he is.

It means: throw the book in the ashcan, watch the films, make up your own mind. ANYONE'S opinions are as valid as his.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[boblipton]

I disagree, Robert. Anyone who thinks that comedy needs 'dialectical interpretation' is either watching an El Brendel film or has no sense of humor. And therefore anyone else's interpretation is MORE valid.

If you bought the book, get your money back. If someone gave you the book, write him or her out of your will.

Bob

[silentfilm]

I agree that that excerpt was a pretty tortured paragraph. Moew's book is about the only one that analyzes Keaton's films that I've liked though. Like Richard says, I would read it after seeing the films. Moews does a great job of analyzing the structure of the films, and his praise of The General and criticism of College is spot on.

If you want to read some tortured criticism, get Gabriella Oldham's Keaton's Silent Shorts: Beyond the Laughter. She really knows how to squeeze any semblance of fun out of Keaton's comedy.

Three must-have books are The Complete Films of Buster Keaton by Jim Kline, Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton by John Bengtson, and Buster Keaton Remembered by Eleanor Keaton and Jeffry Vance.

[Richard M Roberts]

I agree that that excerpt was a pretty tortured paragraph. Moew's book is about the only one that analyzes Keaton's films that I've liked though. Like Richard says, I would read it after seeing the films. Moews does a great job of analyzing the structure of the films, and his praise of The General and criticism of College is spot on

.

Moews "structural analysis" is slightly better than Donald McCaffreys, but like McCaffrey, he over emphasizes it's importance, and praising THE GENERAL is like saying Adolph Hitler was not a nice man. What else are you going to say in describing the bleeding obvious?

If you want to read some tortured criticism, get Gabriella Oldham's Keaton's Silent Shorts: Beyond the Laughter. She really knows how to squeeze any semblance of fun out of Keaton's comedy.

Definitely dreadful, also in the completely useless department is Edward MacPherson's TEMPEST IN A FLAT HAT. Gee, he discovered Buster Keaton a few years ago and spent a year watching his films and decided to write a book. This poor sap has tried to get us to book him as a Slapsticon guest lecturer for several years, and we try to politely tell him that the folk who come to Slapsticon have been studying Buster Keaton for decades, some know his family, some have written books on him, some have discovered Keaton films not known to exist, and can all discuss Keaton with more real knowledge than he thinks he has.

Three must-have books are The Complete Films of Buster Keaton by Jim Kline, Silent Echoes: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Buster Keaton by John Bengtson, and Buster Keaton Remembered by Eleanor Keaton and Jeffry Vance.

The last mostly for the pictures. Vance's texts are also pretty dispensable.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[rollot24]

The last mostly for the pictures. Vance's texts are also pretty dispensable.

I agree about Vance's text, but you do get Eleanor's rememberances. Because of that, and the pictures, I think it's about the best one currently out there, since the Blesh one is long OOP.

[silent-partner]

Mr. Roberts thank you for my new signature.
MacPherson's 'Tempest.....' is a very good intro to new Keatonions, please don't dismiss it out of hand, at least he speaks English.
The new Imogen Sara Smith book 'The Persistence of Comedy' is a great read for those with a greater knowledge of Buster.
But seriously of recent releases the best and most unique has been mentioned; 'Silent Echoes' by Bengston. Out of print but if you like discovering Hollywood through then and now pictures this book will amaze you. Seek it out.

[Jim Roots]

Definitely dreadful, also in the completely useless department is Edward MacPherson's TEMPEST IN A FLAT HAT. Gee, he discovered Buster Keaton a few years ago and spent a year watching his films and decided to write a book. This poor sap has tried to get us to book him as a Slapsticon guest lecturer for several years, and we try to politely tell him that the folk who come to Slapsticon have been studying Buster Keaton for decades, some know his family, some have written books on him, some have discovered Keaton films not known to exist, and can all discuss Keaton with more real knowledge than he thinks he has.

And here I thought you had a mean streak in you, Richard. I am SO disappointed. If you weren't such a pussycat, you would have gladly invited MacPherson and then set him up against a panel of true Keaton experts, publicly humiliating him beyond any hope of redemption.

Get tough, buddy. Your slip is showing.


"Bad Jim" Roots

[Mike Gebert]

which proceeds from affirmation through negation to a final triumphant affirmative negation of negation.

Now THAT'S funny!

Walter Kerr in The Silent Clowns manages to be analytical while keeping all four wheels on the ground and not driving among the moonbeams and unicorns. Considering how much space he devotes to Keaton, there's a good half a book that's better than most of these whole books, I expect.

[silentfilm]

I think that we do need critics who can tell us why something is funny and why some jokes don't work. It is a very difficult job, and most writers just drain the "funny" out of the gag without telling us much. Although Kerr's book is a little disappointing in that he doesn't cover Charley Chase and Roscoe Arbuckle very much, he does a great job of analyzing Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd, Langdon, Laurel & Hardy and even Raymond Griffith.

I've had several people tell me that they don't "get" why The General is a comic masterpiece because it doesn't have as many laughs as some other lesser comedies. I try to tell them that the reason that there are so few comedies about the American Civil War is that it is extremely difficult to do and make it realistic and funny.

I think that the best film criticism is written when analyzing a weaker film rather than a masterpiece. While Keaton's College is not nearly as good as The General or Sherlock, Jr., it is still a favorite since I have a 16mm print of it. Moews book does a great job of pointing out the flaws of College. That doesn't mean that it is not full of some great gags and that it is not funny.

[boblipton]

I think you've fallen into a bit of an academic trap, Bruce. Yes, some of us are involved in film production or exhibition, but the issue of why something is funny is less important than whether it is funny or not. I venture to say there are no neurologists reading this board, and probably not too many psychologists. While we have some people who qualify as philosophers -- mostly amateurs -- I think Bergson got as far as anyone in explaining these issues.

But I suggest that all these questions are misphrased; the question is rarely why. Facts have no meaning, they are facts. Meanings are applied by a mind. Thus, I suggest the question is not WHY these things are funny (or not) but HOW they work: how do they link together, do they produce the effects desired, and so forth. People who make good comedies don't start from general philosophical principles, they build one like someone building a house. A man building a house does not concern himself with first wondering why we need a house or the philosophical issues of why bricks are stronger than straw. He accepts these as givens and works from there. And so does a good maker of comedies.

THE GENERAL works -- and I hope Mr. Roberts will forgive me for stating the blindingly obvious -- because it would be a good story without the jokes, and the jokes are funny. Why (or how) are they funny? Well, the basic rules are pain to people we dislike, incongruities and surprises are funny. It's got those.

And, given my thesis that these things are overanalyzed, I will stop here after stating another blindingly obvious fact: a comedy is successful if it makes me laugh. If it makes a lot of people laugh, it is likely to be financially successful. And that's enough.

Bob

[Mike Gebert]

Actually, I think trying to analyze why something's funny is a mug's game-- it is or it isn't. It's like trying to analyze why Mexican food tastes good. (Or doesn't, to you.)

But a successful screen comedian, by definition, has a coherent film persona (you won't be a success for very long if you're a totally different character film to film, Peter Sellers being the exception that proves the rule I guess), a certain take on the world (Chaplin the Victorian sentimentalist, Keaton the existentialist, Lloyd the go-getter, etc.) and, with any luck, a certain aesthetic of humor that comes through in what strikes you as funny. That's where Kerr really excels with Keaton, drawing out for instance how many of his gags are predicated on a two-dimensional (movie-screen-like) plane of action, and why that makes Keaton so much more cinematic than the guys who came up through the music halls and don't really think about the space in which they're performing in that way. Here's how he talks about the gag in The Balloonatic in which Keaton sees a bear in front of him, and smacks him with the butt end of his shotgun-- in the process discharging the gun and killing a second bear he hasn't even noticed behind him:

The episode is representative of Keaton in a half-dozen ways, including his insistence on no trickery. We see the whole thing happening at once, and, seeing it without the help of convenient cutting, take a special delight in its precision. But, for the moment, suppose we pay attention to just one thing: the strict linear assumption on which the gag is based. The gag depends on the first bear, the second bear, Buster and the gun all inhabiting a single, severely narrow plane. Let the bear behind Buster be ever so slightly off this straight line, wandering around in the space that's presumably available, and the event won't take place. In life, with depth to work and wander in, so adventitious a lineup would rarely fall into position. On a flat screen, and with Keaton, it is a matter of fact.

That's not explaining why something's funny-- it's explaining why it's poetic, in a way it wouldn't be if Larry Semon had done it.

Granted, Kerr's is not a comprehensive study, it's about what appeals to him and (crucially in the case of someone like Arbuckle) about what was available to be viewed around 1978 or 1979 when he was writing it, which is very different from what's available to us now. But as a model for how to find the depth in comedians without weighing them down so heavily in academese that they can never get back up again, it's exemplary.

[boblipton]

Which, Mike, is a description of how it works, not why. The genius involved derives from an understanding of the fact that this will be viewed on a flat surface, resulting in a distorted perception of space that does not strain our credulity. There's a certain Rube-Goldbergesque construction to it that tickles our funny bones -- the surprise that this rather elaborate machine-for-shooting-the-second bear actually works.

Bob

[Mike Gebert]

Which, to be fair to Kerr, is pretty much what he's been saying for the two or three pages up to that point, though your "machine-for-shooting-the-second-bear" is a particularly nice image. Keaton's melding with on-screen machinery is something Kerr talks about a lot; it makes one wish Keaton had done an assembly-line comedy like Chaplin did, because he would have found something very different in it than Chaplin's monster that eats him. (But, of course, Keaton mainly found that sympathy in the two machines that a vaudevillian turned movie star would have had the most personal experience with-- trains and movie cameras.)

[boblipton]

My apologies Mike, if it seems I was disagreeing with Kerr. I guess I was not clear. I was merely pointing out that he was not talking about the motivations of comedy, but the techniques.

And yes, I think the character of the comic is important. But that has nothing to do with any individual gag.

Bob

[Harlett O'Dowd]

And yes, I think the character of the comic is important. But that has nothing to do with any individual gag.

Bob

Like just about all sweeping statements (oops, I'm making another one) I feel this one is too simplistic. The character of the comic often has a *lot* to do with the gag.

Had that mugger pulled out a gun and growled, "Your money or your life" to any other comic but Jack Benny, the moment would have been scary, not funny.

Yet Jack kept his mouth shut while the audience roared and only after the laughter died down did he say, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" which, of course got an even BIGGER laugh.

[Richard M Roberts]

Answering Gebert and Calvert at once:

Walter Kerr does about as good a job as anyone has in describing the mechanics of comedy without ruining the jokes, but he does fall off the tangent cliff more than once (my favorite is his postulating that Keaton turned the universe upside down for the soup in the coffee cup gag in COLLEGE, missing the point on a very standard waiter joke). I think THE SILENT CLOWNS had not aged quite as well as it should have, considering how important it was in introducing so many to silent film comedy. He muffs quite a bit of historical material, forgivable to some degree in a book that is more criticism than history to begin with, but he definitely held snooty-East Coast opinions on Keystone and comics like Larry Semon and Lupino Lane, dismissing them out of hand and missing out on the wonderfully surreal and subversive aspects of especially Keystone.

I also disagree with a lot of his thinking on Langdon, especially the self-directed features. And THE SILENT CLOWNS did a lot to cement and perpetuate this concept of "The Three Big Kings of Silent Comedy" and stop academics from looking too far beyond that horizon.

Speaking of COLLEGE, I get a bit tired of seeing that film dismissed as a lesser or weaker Keaton film. The only problem with COLLEGE is that it came out after THE GENERAL and THE FRESHMAN. With an audience, it's a solid crowd-pleaser, and I think Keaton certainly made weaker features (GO WEST comes to mind). And I don't think less of Keaton for doing a college picture after Lloyd, lots of comics did college pictures. The Marx Brothers did HORSEFEATHERS, Laurel and Hardy did A CHUMP AT OXFORD. It's like all comedians doing westerns, it a natural and it allows each comic to do their own take on a well-known genre. And Keaton applied his own outlook and style on it making it different from what Lloyd did. It s a funny picture, which is all it intends to be. Success!

And answering Mr Lipton: All philosophers are amateurs, the only ones who try to make a living at it are actually failed novelists.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[Richard M Roberts]

And here I thought you had a mean streak in you, Richard. I am SO disappointed. If you weren't such a pussycat, you would have gladly invited MacPherson and then set him up against a panel of true Keaton experts, publicly humiliating him beyond any hope of redemption.

Actually, what I'm thinking is "we can listen to this guy, or watch several more good comedy shorts.". In my book, that's a no-brainer.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

[boblipton]

Harlett O'Dowd wrote

[/quote]Like just about all sweeping statements (oops, I'm making another one) I feel this one is too simplistic. The character of the comic often has a *lot* to do with the gag. [quote]

Absolutely, and you caught me out on this. Watching the mirror gag this week as it appeared with Lucy imitating Harpo, it was tremendously different from Harpo imitating Groucho. And no one takes a fall like Keaton.

What I meant to say was the success of any individual gag does not depend on the comic. The mechanics of the house-parked-on-the-railroad tracks gag that's first used in ONE WEEK was used in at least three other comedies I've seen and it always works. But certainly some gags are more appropriate to some characters than other. Your citation of Benny's "Your Money or Your Life" gag is a perfect example. And certainly, as in the mirror gag, the characters shine through. But just as people remember Chaplin doing the dinner-roll dance in THE GOLD RUSH and no one remembers Arbuckle doing it earlier in THE ROUGH HOUSE, both version are very funny in their own ways, each typical of the comic performing it.

Bob

[silentfilm]

College is a very funny comedy, but I think that it is just an average Keaton comedy. Of course an average Keaton comedy is still better than most other comedians' best stuff. College has three superb comic sequences that are quite long: the job at the soda shop, the attempts to make the various athletic teams, and the final rowing race.

I've heard people say that it is imitative of The Freshman, and that is true, but I don't think that this is necessarily bad since silent comedians borrowed from each other frequently. But Keaton's character in this film is motivated by his love for Mary Haines (Anne Cornwall), which is what would motivate Harold, but usually not Buster. In The General, Keaton was trying to rescue his train, and it was just lucky that he rescued Annabelle too. Of course, she thought he chased the train to just rescue her. Keaton was motivated by his love for "Brown Eyes" in Go West, but of course she was a heifer. Keaton's character had a crush on Dorothy Sebastian in Spite Marriage, but the point of that film was that she was nothing like the woman he saw in her.

Keaton did later swoon over Marcelline Day in the great The Cameraman, but in that film she was a well-rounded character, probably the sweetest heroine in any Keaton film. Mary Haines in College is just a stereotypical pretty girl for Keaton to love from afar even though the audience barely knows her.

Keaton usually got some gags from the "girl" and him being on completly different pages when trying to solve a problem, be it on the ocean liner or the train, but in this film Mary doesn't do anything to make Buster's life complicated except to say that she likes athletes and not bookworms.

Just about all the Keaton silent features have a story structure where Keaton has a problem (stranded on an ocean liner, accused of a robbery, his train is stolen and he can't enlist in the army, his dad thinks he is a total wimp). The first half of the film he is spectacularly unsuccessful at whatever task is necessary. When the climax comes, Keaton has to perform all of the same tasks, but this time he is successful. He does it in a screwy way though, which the audience realizes is logical but very funny.



In College, he fails at every sport he attempts. He almost sinks the rowing team, but with some great gags Keaton is able to pull out a win for the team. This part of the film is typical Keaton. But then his girl is threatened by baddie Jeff. All of the sudden, Keaton is great at running, hurdles, pole vaulting, etc., stuff that he was inept at days before. He is perfect at these instantly, and there is not much of a Keaton twist, so it seems more like a Charles Ray comedy than a Keaton comedy.

The ending of the film is something that only Buster would attempt -- it is a great gag on "happily ever after" that is reminiscent of the ending ofCops.

So I do like to analyze his films, but this is about as deep as I care to go. I'm with Richard and Bob that if you analyze too deeply you lose the comedy. But we still should be able to talk to each other about why one comedy is very good, and another one is not so good. Otherwise we would have to devote more time to "enjoying" Al Joy and Charles Puffy.

[Mike Gebert]

Kerr likes what he likes, and he doesn't like what he doesn't like. Since I somewhat share his Keystone problem (finding the antics of completely unmotivated zanies less funny than the antics of recognizable humans turned a couple of clicks past sanity), it works for me, but your mileage in a Super Hooper-Dyne Lizzie may vary. If there's a problem, it's less with Kerr's book than with the fact that there aren't five more books of comparable stature with competing views. Richard is probably right that, like a copyright renewal, it came along to extend the "four great clowns" trope for another term, which is kind of the last thing anybody needed, except to the extend that at least four silent clowns people are familiar with beats none at all.

I've never thought that Keaton was "doing a Lloyd" in College except to the extent, as Richard says, that certain comic situations are virtually irresistible for the sets of props and conventions they offer to play with. Boxing, college, circuses... the standard stuff of comedy then, as buddy movies about two cops, one wacky, one a hardass, would be today. And pretty much by definition, a college movie has to end with an athletic competition, and an athletic competition has to end with the hero coming from behind and saving the day, so the hero has to be a loser up to that point... most genres write themselves that way. You make a movie about firemen, there's gonna be a fire at the end.

For me, what College has always seemed most like is One A.M., a solo piece for Keaton demonstrating his comic athleticism with relatively little distraction from other characters or plot for considerable stretches. Consequently, it may not pack the dramatic punch of some others, that seems undeniable to me, but it's sure a pleasure to watch him at it.

[silent-partner]

And yes, I think the character of the comic is important. But that has nothing to do with any individual gag.

Bob

Like just about all sweeping statements (oops, I'm making another one) I feel this one is too simplistic. The character of the comic often has a *lot* to do with the gag.

Had that mugger pulled out a gun and growled, "Your money or your life" to any other comic but Jack Benny, the moment would have been scary, not funny.

Yet Jack kept his mouth shut while the audience roared and only after the laughter died down did he say, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" which, of course got an even BIGGER laugh.

I'm going to chime in and say that this is the best post of the thread. You guys are fricking wonderful in your descriptions of what makes funny funny and I love the détente approach you gents take.
The silent lover in me however hates Miss O'Dowd's post because it 'spoke'.
Movies were never meant to be silent and the fact that so many people made a living at it, doing it, speaks volumes.

Bob Lipton said: "Facts have no meaning, they are facts. Meanings are applied by a mind. Thus, I suggest the question is not WHY these things are funny (or not) but HOW they work: how do they link together, do they produce the effects desired, and so forth."
I like that as well. Then....he goes on...and on.

Funny is funny.
Why define it?
Is it human nature? Is it akin to describing why bacon tastes so good?
Get over it.
Unless you are Jewish, bacon tastes ****** awesome.
It's bacon man.
Bacon is bacon.

I am really hungry right now.

[boblipton]

It's not deep analysis that I object to, Bruce, nor, I daresay, do you. It's BS analysis that has nothing to do with with the subject at hand. Happily, deconstructionism had not arisen as a method of producing films during the silent era; I am not sure it works satisfactorily in literature, although its practitioners are occasionally sufficiently brilliant to overcome its limitations.

It is simply that the heart of the quote that kicked this thread off, "the final triumphant affirmative negation of negation" is not an analysis of Keaton's work, but a statement of the content of the writer's state of mind: the triumphant affirmative negation of negation seems to me an empty space.

I, too, take good deal of pleasure in figuring out how Keaton achieves some of his emotional effects: my favorite is the sequence in THE CAMERAMAN in which he is waiting for the phone call from Marceline Day. That repetitive elevator shot, with him going up and down and getting nowhere, followed by that long burst of joyous running.

However, in all these cases of analysis, the real issue is how the effects are achieved. Keaton's approach was not rooted in academic discourse. It was rooted in years of watching what made a live audience laugh, in tearing apart the camera, and an apprenticeship under Arbuckle.

Great truths do not arise from logical analysis. They come from leaps of intuition: that is the basis of genius. Lesser minds may try to fill in the lines of progression, but that is bogus, like knowing that a rocket took off from one spot and landed on another, and trying to plot its route on a bus map. Genius does not use logic, any more that rockets use bus routes, and only overeducated fools, attempting to make themselves seem greater, would dare to assert they do.

As Jonathan Swift wrote: "When you sink, I seem the higher." I have no wish to seem higher, nor do I wish to try to sink Keaton to my level. I would rather celebrate him and his work.

Bob

[Gumlegs]

Eleanor Keaton had just about every book about Buster on her shelves. I noticed one once that was very heavy on theory and analysis and asked her about it.

She looked at me in some exasperation and said, "He was trying to be funny."

[Shorty]

She was right. Listen to his interviews, Buster worked on the gags, not on himself. Letting the world create it's own chaos while he remained stoic. Keaton succedds in this and is as lasting as L&H - My nickel on it

[Mike Gebert]

"Making people laugh is the lowest form of comedy." --Michael O'Donoghue

[boblipton]

Ah, Michael, what higher purpose in a world turned upside down?

Bob