The Root of the MGM Problem

Now, Buster Keaton’s MGM films are obviously riddled with issues.  The studio preferred tried-and-true comedic formulas and had no stomach for inventive auteurs (sound familiar?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.)  They hired Buster for his star power, not for his abilities, and they didn’t give him any say in the making of his own movies.  The head honchos really didn’t understand (or even like) slapstick, and in the early talkie years, they were mad for “jokes” rather than sight gags or visual comedy.  All of that is unfortunate at best, depressing at worst.  However, for me, these problems either stem from or contribute to the central failing of the MGM films:  the departure they take from Buster’s trademark characterization.

As I keep saying, again and again, I love the character Buster develops in his independent work, which began to form in the shorts and was cemented in the features.  Buster’s little fellow has a few different variations – dandy, regular Joe, aesthete – but they’re all alike where it counts.  His character is first and foremost a doer, a tenacious and resourceful go-getter who never backs down from taking on bad guys and rivals who are all bigger and more powerful than him.  He’s like a slapstick David, clumsy and disaster-prone but determined and clever.  He always comes out on top in the end, and he always brings about his own endings.

Skip ahead to the MGM years, and our dogged little scrapper is nowhere to found.  Instead, he’s replaced by the stock character MGM created for Buster, the “Elmer.”  This character couldn’t be further from Buster’s standard persona.  Rather than smart and imaginative, he’s frequently dull, sometimes outright stupid.  When taken to the extreme, this is just painful to watch; in Free and Easy (ugh,) he can’t recite a four-word line when it’s fed to him bit by bit, and in Parlor, Bedroom and Bath, he doesn’t know how to spell the word “coat.”  I mean, come on!  This is a far cry from the eminently-rootable character Buster created for himself, and in a broader context, it’s just lazy.  I hate the assumption that comedy can’t be smart – it’s that kind of attitude that tends to put comedy beneath drama in terms of craft, care, difficulty, etc., when in truth, drama isn’t inherently better, just different.

And even worse, the Elmer character is passive.  Buster’s little fellow is always active.  Yes, lots of craziness happens around him, but he also makes things happen.  He doesn’t sit on his heels; he rolls up his sleeves and leans into the wind.  Even when he screws up, he’s still trying, still adapting, to working to find a way to get it right.  This dynamism is threaded all through his persona, right down to his clumsiness, which, in his independent work, is so spectacular and gracefully kinetic.  But if Buster’s character swims upstream, MGM’s drifts with the current.  Things happen to him, not the other way around.  Most of the time, if he does do something, it’s because someone else is telling to.  If he saves the day, it’s more often than not by accident.  Again, this is hugely frustrating and disheartening for viewers accustomed to Buster’s usual activeness.  From a more general cinematic perspective, it’s similarly problematic, because what sort of central character doesn’t do anything?  How can you make a movie out of that?  Though I don’t particularly relish the idea, I’m thinking I ought to try watching a few non-Buster MGM films from the same era, and maybe even a couple from the silent days.  I mean, do they do this in all their movies, or were they so annoyed at Buster having actual ideas and wanting creative input that they deliberately made flat, poorly-conceived just to stick it to him?  Either way, I’m not amused.