As many of us need laughs big time, it's fabulous that loving tributes to 20th century comedy heroes (Love, Gilda and Stan & Ollie among them) have been produced and are now opening in festivals and movie theaters. Doubly pleased to hear that Peter Bogdanovich, one of our favorite film historian authors and movie directors, has made a documentary, The Great Buster: A Celebration, about the one, the only Buster Keaton.
Does this pique the interest of those at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog (even if we're not quite as deadpan as Buster)?
YES! Seeing Buster's 1922 film Cops on television's "Silents Please" was the experience that instantaneously made this writer an avid film buff and a Buster Keaton fan for life. The official press release elaborates:
The Great Buster celebrates the life and career of one of America’s most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians, Buster Keaton, whose singular style and fertile output during the silent era created his legacy as a true cinematic visionary.
Filled with stunningly restored archival Keaton films from the Cohen Film Classics library, The Great Buster is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, a filmmaker and cinema historian whose landmark writings and films on such renowned directors as John Ford and Orson Welles have become the standard by which all other studies are measured.
Keaton’s beginnings on the vaudeville circuit are chronicled in The Great Buster, as is the development of his trademark physical comedy and deadpan expression that earned him the lifelong moniker of “The Great Stone Face”, all of which led to his career-high years as the director, writer, producer and star of his own short films and features.
Interspersed throughout are interviews with nearly two-dozen collaborators, filmmakers, performers and friends, including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, Dick van Dyke and Johnny Knoxville, who discuss Keaton’s influence on modern comedy and, indeed, cinema itself.
The loss of artistic independence and career decline that marked his later years are also covered by Bogdanovich, before he casts a close eye on Keaton’s extraordinary output from 1923 to 1929, which yielded 10 remarkable feature films (including 1926’s The General and 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr.) that immortalized him as one of the greatest actor-filmmakers in the history of cinema.
The Great Buster: A Celebration was an Official Selection for the 2018 Venice, Telluride, Mill Valley and L.A. Film Festivals.
This is not the first comprehensive documentary about the legendary and innovative movie career of The Great Stone Face. Atop the list of documentaries we'd love to see on DVD or Blu-ray would be the sensational Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow, created by Kevin Brownlow and the late David Gill for Photoplay Productions.
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act To Follow is one of the great documentaries about movies. Was floored upon first viewing it on PBS on its original airing, and hope that other Brownlow & Gill films (Hollywood, Unknown Chaplin, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius and Cinema Europe) will eventually see a DVD or Blu-ray release. It's too bad Mr. Brownlow, an expert among experts in the field, is not among those involved in the new documentary. Have watched all the Brownlow and Gill documentaries. This one on Buster is one of those documentaries that demands repeated viewings.
Positives? #1 - The Great Buster: A Celebration will not be strictly a straight-to-DVD proposition. It is now hitting the festival circuit and will open in select theatres. #2 - Any attention to the filmmaking genius of Buster Keaton, over 50 years after his death, is to be commended. Negatives? The emphasis on celebrities and big names over experts on silent movies and Buster Keaton's films, no doubt with high hopes to attract young viewers and inspire people who are not classic movie buffs to learn more: all understandable, albeit annoying to silent movie aficionados and film geeks such as this correspondent.
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