New
blog feature today! Bag of Tricks looks
at the signatures and preferences of a particular
performer/director/writer/etc, and where better to start than with Buster
Keaton? Now, Buster was quite the
cinematic Renaissance man, and as such, one post won’t cover all the hats he
wore. Today we’re looking at Buster the
performer – actor, showman, and, of course, stuntman.
The Stone Face
As I’ve
said, it’s so much funnier when
Buster doesn’t smile, and I don’t even know why. It’s true, though – that stoic face cracks me
up hard. Yet, even with the deadpan, he’s so
expressive. The tiniest twitch of his
mouth or widening of his eyes conveys a huge amount.
Silent Movie Gestures
I love
these. While Buster’s facial acting is subtler
than most of his contemporaries, he still uses plenty of the huge, pantomimic
gestures of the period. I get a kick out
of him slumping into a faint, wooing a girl on bended knee with outreached arms,
or, my favorite, interlacing his fingers in rapture. These gestures crop up throughout his career,
even in the ‘50s and ‘60s when they’re out of fashion. So, seeing him in a guest role on a random TV
show, he still seems so Buster.
The Flying Flip
This is
a great tumble. It can happen swinging a golf club, baseball
bat, or hammer, or even just taking a punch.
Given the slightest bit of encouragement, he flings himself sideways
into the air, twisting 360 degrees while simultaneously revolving as if on a
spit. The whole thing is topped off with
a hard land on his bottom, sitting up straight with his legs splayed out at right
angles.
The Twisting Tumble
(I
never realized how alliterative his stunts are.) Another Buster classic. Instead of just tripping or stumbling, he
again puts so much more into it, diving headfirst into a fluid fall with his
legs in the air as he spins on his shoulder (or sometimes his neck!) before
landing in his usual seated position.
There are so many great examples of this stunt, but the best comes in Steamboat Bill Jr. when, catching his
foot, he executes it twice in an
instant. Now that’s “falling with style!”
The Walk-to-Run
This
one’s fun. Someone’s after Buster and he
knows it, but he tries not to let on. He
keeps walking, faster and faster until he’s running pell-mell and you can’t
even tell when he started doing it.
Plus, it’s always so perfectly timed with the increasing pace of this
pursuer – too funny.
The Slant
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