Bogdanovich, Welles, and Buster
I’m grateful to Ottawa’s historic
Mayfair Theatre for bringing the marvelous documentary reviewed below on the
life and storied career of Buster Keaton, the silent era’s comedic genius
rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin. (They
appeared together on screen only once, in Chaplin’s Limelight from 1952.) The
Mayfair opened in 1932, only a few years after that era ended, and has
occasionally brought back silent classics.
The Great Buster is written and directed
by veteran filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich who also helms the new Netflix
documentary They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead
recounting the notorious saga of Orson Welles’ unfinished project The Other Side of the Wind, a
much-troubled production from decades ago starring John Huston intended as a
satire on the movie business with which Welles had a famously fraught relationship. A much younger Bogdanovich appears as a
character in The Other Side which he
helped to finish, the result which premiered at Venice, skipping Toronto, is
now streaming on Netflix. The Great Buster has a scene of Welles
introducing Keaton’s most acclaimed film The
General, more appreciated today than when it was released in 1926.
The Great Buster: A Celebration
(U.S. http://cohenmedia.net/films/thegreatbuster)
Bogdanovich’s
loving look back at cinema history also premiered at the Venice Film Festival (again
skipping Toronto), appropriately so since Venice gave Keaton a huge moving
tribute in 1965, the year before he died.
Director Bogdanovich ranges over the entire arc of Buster Keaton’s life
and work from his earliest days as a child performer in a family vaudeville act
to his long decline after the silent era under contract to MGM and in a variety
of small roles. That late work includes
a silent short “The Railrodder” for the National Film Board aboard Canadian
National Railways. While acknowledging how
Keaton’s star sadly faded, what still greatly delights in this engaging
retrospective is the trove of extensive clips recalling Keaton’s best work
during the silent era, beginning with a series of two-reelers, moving on to his
ten features as producer-director-principal actor from 1923-28 that are rightly
regarded as masterworks. Doing his own stunts, Keaton’s comic timing and
physical talents are astonishing. With
the unsmiling “stoneface” of a mime he was able to convey so much through
facial expression and posture alone. The Great Buster does him justice as a
cinematic treasure. A
Comments
Post a Comment