The Genius of Buster

Jana Prikryl

The Best of Buster
twelve feature-length and twelve short films by Buster Keaton,

A Hard Act to Follow
a documentary directed by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill (1987)

Buster Keaton: Interviews
edited by Kevin W. Sweeney

The Fall of Buster Keaton: His Films for M-G-M, Educational Pictures, and Columbia
by James L. Neibaur

Lost Keaton: Sixteen Comedy Shorts, 193437
Kino, DVD, $34.95

The General
a film directed by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman (1926)

Steamboat Bill, Jr.
a film directed by Charles F. Reisner (1928)

Sherlock, Jr./Three Ages
films directed by Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline (1924/1923)

Our Hospitality
a film directed by Buster Keaton and Jack Blystone (1923)

The Short Films Collection, 19201923
nineteen films directed by Buster Keaton and others

prikryl_1-060911.jpg

John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images

Buster Keaton as Rollo Treadway in The Navigator, 1924

More than fifty years have passed since critics rediscovered Buster Keaton and pronounced him the most modern silent film clown, a title he hasnt shaken since. In his own day he was certainly famous but never commanded the wealth or popularity of Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd, and he suffered most when talkies arrived. It may be that later stars like Cary Grant and Paul Newman and Harrison Ford have made us more susceptible to Keatons model of offhand stoicism than his own audiences were. Seeking for his ghost is a fruitless business, though; for one thing, film comedy today has swung back toward the sappy, blatant slapstick that Keaton disdained. Theres some irony in what Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler do, but its irony that clamors to win the identification of the supposedly browbeaten everyman in every audience. K! eaton to ok your average everyman and showed how majestically alone he was.


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