Top Five Camera Tricks: Buster Keaton

Buster Keaton’s movies have a very modern feel to me – not that they’re like today’s movies, but that they feel very modern for the times they were made in.  Buster was a real filmmaker’s filmmaker, and he employed innovative camera techniques to do stuff that a) must have been incredible to his audiences, and b) add a lot of signature flavor to his movies. 

The Playhouse

The whole multiple-Busters dream sequence is of course astounding.  For several minutes, there are variously two, three, or nine Busters onscreen at once, and they’re all him – no doubles.  He recorded the same shots multiple times, each time covering up a different segment of the film.  The camera had to be hand-cranked at precisely the same speed throughout, and when Buster dances with himself, he used a metronome to make sure the steps would line up perfectly.

Sherlock, Jr.

More dream sequence stuff, different but still great.  Buster steps into an onscreen film-within-a-film and then starts jumbling said film into a bunch of random shots from various locales.  He moves about a city street, a desert, a winter scene, an ocean, and a jungle, the movements in each carrying him smoothly into the next shot.  It’s seamless; I can’t imagine how much work it took to ensure he started each shot in exactly the same position as he ended the last one.

Sherlock, Jr. revisited

Sherlock, Jr. is totally Buster’s auteur movie – the whole thing shows off what an excellent filmmaker he was.  This second instance is, if I recall correctly, a modification to an old vaudeville trick where it looks like one person jumps through another’s stomach.  Buster’s vaudeville roots influenced his work a lot, but he also took advantage of new technology, and here, he used clever camera work to expand the gag and make it look more authentic.

Seven Chances

I like this little trick, a shot of Buster getting into his car in one location that melts into another of him getting out at his destination.  Though not as impressive as some of the scenes here, it’s noteworthy because it’s so small.  He easily could’ve filmed himself driving up to his destination instead of having it seemingly materialize around him, but he did it just cuz.  That’s the kind of filmmaker he was; why do something ordinary when he could dream up something different?

The Cameraman

Given the subject matter, Buster plays around a lot with camera techniques here, especially in the myriad mistakes his character makes in filming his first newsreel footage.  My favorite, though, is this wonderful bit.  It’s a great combination of Buster’s technical skill and his visual creativity, because he doesn’t just overlay two random shots on one another – it’s a downtown New York shot and a harbor shot, making it look like a ship is floating down the street.  Love it!