Time
for another look at the tools of Buster Keaton’s trade. We’ve already talked about him as a
performer, but today is about his work as a writer, director, and gag man. (He really was quite the auteur, wasn’t he?) Spoilers for certain almost-100-year-old
gags.
Rube Goldberg Devices
I doubt
Buster ever met a machine that didn’t fascinate him. Throughout his career, he came up with all
sorts of clever mechanics from the bell-ringer in The High Sign to the inventive breakfast-making gadgets in The Navigator. His best are the contraptions that do double
duty; most famously, there’s the Rube Goldberg house in The Scarecrow, where everything serves dual functions (the
bookcase/refrigerator and stove/record player are my favorites.)
Chase Scenes
Could
anyone stage a chase like Buster? He
dives through trap doors, scrambles up fire escapes, hides in plain sight as
statues, executes tricky moves with elevators, forms human ladders, tries to
make getaways on wooden horses, leaps between buildings, and uses ladders like seesaws,
and that’s just off the top of my head.
I’ve never seen anyone so creatively fleet-footed.
Circular Gags
Buster
liked riding a comic sequence back around to its starting point. There’s the moment in Neighbors when he zips over the clothesline to escape his girl’s
father, but then slides down the bannister and rides the clothesline right back
over. One Week has another great example when, after he and his bride hop
out of the car driven by her jealous ex, Buster whacks a police man on the
head, blames the ex, and gets back in the car as the policeman drags the ex out
of it. Sometimes, while working with elaborate
sets, he pulls the camera back far enough to see the literal circles he makes
as he treats the set like his own personal jungle gym.
Going Out on a Punch Line
Buster’s
films are usually good for ending on one final joke, like he can’t give up the chance
to make you laugh once more before you go.
I love the ending of Our
Hospitality, where he throws off his blanket to reveal all his concealed
guns, and Sherlock Jr.’s terrific
last sequence, where he takes cues from a movie to woo his girl, ends on a
fantastic shot of him perplexedly trying to figure out how the characters
onscreen got from sharing a kiss to raising twins.
No comments:
Post a Comment