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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.movies
Subject: Re: Keaton, Sennet,etc.
Message-ID: <6860@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 16-Sep-85 19:46:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6860
Posted: Mon Sep 16 19:46:24 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 05:27:50 EDT
References: <11094@rochester.UUCP> <6683@ucla-cs.ARPA> <837@udenva.UUCP>
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 46

In article <837@udenva.UUCP> showard@udenva.UUCP (showard) writes:

>    I find Buster Keaton to be far from humorous.  As for a comic persona, hav-
>ing the exact same expression on one's face for an entire film career is over-
>doing it just a bit.  Houses falling over, massive destruction, and hanging 
>from the sides of tall buildings just aren't that funny.  Mack Sennet, too, 
>used violence more than humor in his films.  You may find pie-fights and banana
>skins hilarious but to me it seem juvenile and annoying.

I can hardly argue that Mack Sennett isn't juvenile, since he is.  Sennett is
not to everyone's taste, and a little of his work goes a long way.  Buster 
Keaton, however, is hilarious, in my opinion.  To say that he only has one 
expression is to miss the point.  Keaton's genius lay in his persistence, his 
ability to carry on in the face of any disaster without complaint or even the 
slightest show of exasperation.  If his expression changed even once, it would
ruin the joke.  Just how much Keaton have you seen?

I should also point out that, Sennett aside, most silent comedians were not
especially violent or deeply into slapstick humor.  Slapstick was one of
many tools they used.  Keaton probably never slipped on a banana peel or
threw a pie in any of his films.  Violence is not a major component of
Keaton's films.  There's a hurricane in "Steamboat Bill Jr.", and a house front
does fall over in that movie (right on top of Keaton, who fortunately happens
to be standing at a point where a window falls), but Keaton doesn't use the
pull-the-nose, kick-the-ass type of comedy perfected by the Three Stooges.
The standard Keaton bit is to set him to an impossible task and then watch
him persevere in the face of incredible odds.  Chaplin used a bit more 
slapstick, but he was incredibly inventive about it.  You won't find your 
standard custard pie fight in any of Chaplin's own films.   Have you actually 
seen Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last"?

I suppose if one's taste is exclusively to Oscar Wilde, Noel Coward, and
Woody Allen, biting verbal wit, then one might not enjoy classic silent comedy.
Otherwise, I do not understand how anyone could fail to appreciate it,
and you are the first person I have ever heard say that he has actually
seen it and didn't like it.  I won't argue preferences (Chaplin vs. Keaton),
nor a dislike of an individual performer, but, taken as a whole, the great
silent comedies of the 1920s are, in my opinion, the funniest films ever
made.  The true test, of course, is listening to an audience.  Whenever I
see a great silent comedy in a theater, the laughter is almost deafening.
Good thing they were silent, because you never would have heard anything
they said.
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
				reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher