In 1928, Keaton signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and he always said that this was a big mistake: the change in his work was immediate. Keaton in The General … ‘Probably his best-directed movie.’ Photograph: ITV / Rex Features I would have liked to tell him I thought he was a genius. In around 1965, I started trying to track him down and it turned out he was living just a few blocks from where we were living. It’s a regret of mine that I never met Keaton. He would always say: “Look at that beautiful face.” Orson Welles loved him, and we talked about Keaton quite often. But you can see plenty of nuanced expressions on his face. Keaton used to say that he was too busy working to smile. You look at any of the features Keaton made, though, and they seem as if they were conceived in the present time. His films are the most modern of the silent comedies because Harold Lloyd’s essential character, the college square, has pretty much disappeared, and Chaplin was always idiosyncratic and kind of Victorian. I tried to include members of the audience who didn’t know anything about him to begin with, and the people who have seen it tell me that it made them want to see more Keaton. You can talk about it, but you can’t really feel it unless you see it. I put as many clips into the documentary as possible because there’s no other way to explain the extraordinary physicality of Keaton and his perfect timing. They think of it like Sanskrit or something. The silent era has, sadly, been forgotten by younger people. The chase in What’s Up, Doc? Photograph: Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd That was based on Cybill’s joke, which she stole from Keaton. There was a joke in the sequence that Cybill Shepherd came up with, which is the one where the garbage cans start chasing a guy on the street, and he jumps over the fence. I kept that in mind when Ryan O’Neal was running alongside Barbra Streisand on the grocery cart.
Buster keaton movies directed full#
Keaton said: “You have to always see a comedy actor’s feet and legs,” meaning you have to see the full figure when he’s in action. The main influence of Keaton on my work was in What’s Up, Doc? We had a chase sequence that went on for 12 minutes and I kept saying: “This is my Buster Keaton chase.” That was probably a bit presumptuous of me – I don’t think it’s as good as Keaton, but I was thinking of him when I filmed it. One of the best films that came out last year in that sense was Knives Out – very visual and very funny. That’s the key, I think, to making a good picture. Sound in pictures didn’t arrive until my father was 30, so he grew up with silent film, and I came to feel that the centre of the art of cinema was silent pictures: telling stories visually. I think the weakest one is Seven Chances (1925), but even that has some great stuff in, such as the chase with the women at the end. The whole thing had been a dream.Keaton didn’t make a bad feature. Keaton then wakes up in his own boat which had never left the dock. The Navy scores a direct hit and Keaton is seen hurtled skyward angel-wing style. He docks at the rear of a platform he is unaware is a target bullseye for naval gunnery practice. He escapes in a lifeboat with no idea where land is.
Buster keaton movies directed series#
Despite a series of mishaps, Keaton manages to avoid the fate of other crewmen.īut Keaton desires to escape, and chops a hole in the hull to sink the boat. The whaler's merciless captain throws crew members overboard for even the slightest offense.Īfter his steward accidentally pours hot tea over the captain's hand, the captain tosses him overboard and replaces him with Keaton. In order to escape from his life and his lost love, Keaton sets off on his small boat, Cupid, but runs into the whaling ship, The Love Nest. It is his 19th and final film at Buster Keaton Productions and last silent short film. The Love Nest is a 1923 American short comedy silent film written and directed by and starring Buster Keaton.
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