S

Buster Keaton ShortsOne Week – 1920

The Scarecrow – 1920

The ‘High Sign’ – 1921

Cops - 1922

COMPONENT 2: SECTION C

SILENT CINEMA

AREAS FOR STUDY

S FILM FORM

S MEANING AND RESPONSE (INCLUDING REPRESENTATION OF REALISM)

S CONTEXTS

S CRITICAL DEBATES

Why you are studying Silent

Cinema

S Communicating narrative through purely visual means is an

art form in itself (think about a painting e.g. the many

‘narratives’ about the Mona Lisa)

S Buster Keaton’s films explored ‘big man v little man’ narratives

during a time of great industrial progress (modernism) pre the

Great Depression/Wall Street global crash in 1929 –

Chaplin/Harold Lloyd as contemporaries, see 1921 Never

Weaken

S Representations very theatrical, OTT and stylised reflecting a

vaudeville tradition (theatre based on comedy situations)

S Cops is the main film in this resource

S

Cops(1922)

The Cops has several ‘big gags’ – personal favourite,

Policeman ‘punched’ twice

Example Questions: 30 min, 20

mark question

Discuss how your chosen film or films reflect aesthetic qualities associated

with a particular film movement

Discuss how far your chosen film or films reflect cultural contexts associated

with a particular film movement

To what extent can it be said that your chosen film movement represents an

expressionistic, as opposed to a realist approach to filmmaking? Make

detailed reference to examples from the silent film or films you have studied

“Films without recorded speech can succeed brilliantly in communicating

ideas and emotions”. How true is this statement in relation to the silent film

or films you have studied?

Grand buildings – LA as American city,

progress/modernity protected by The Police

Big man v Little man. Bars as symbolic and

preventing him from achieving his goals

Any idea how this bloke might could be used

introducing a critical debate on Cops?

Franz Kafka

S German novelist and writer (d. 1924) whose work

combined the realist and the fantastic

S His writings featured isolated figures facing bizarre or

surreal predicaments – sounds familiar?

S His characters always were ‘outside of the system’,

alienated and marginalised

S Impress the Examiner – explain how Cops is Kafka-esque!!

Representation of modern life and the

realities of social class/status

Slapstick comedy underpinning

Failure to adapt to modern life in a

conventional way

Context

S Keaton virtually ‘born into’ Vaudeville

S Known for his comic timing, physicality/flexibility and near perfect execution of own stunts

S Got into filmmaking aged 22 – he was 26 when Cops was made (see Orson Wellles and Citizen Kane)

S Plates identity the role of Joseph Schenck (film exec. Who set up Buster Keaton productions) and the role of Keaton as auteur (written and directed)

S Discovered by Fatty Arbuckle (film took place during his trial for murder and rape – acquitted)

Film form and Keaton’s style 1

S Playing with film speed e.g. undercranking (slowing speed of the film through the camera making it seem faster when projected)

S All about timing, tempo and fluidity of movement – modernist tradition (Jim Emerson on Poetry in Motion website describes Keaton’s shorts as like ‘dance numbers’)

S Keaton was keen to ‘record what was happening’ as opposed to constructing meaning through the process of editing (unlike Soviet filmmakers at the same time) e.g. shots of the busy street suggesting a form of chaos

S Keaton deliberately has a horse and cart as his major prop, commenting on the street chaos (one traffic cop only)

Film form and Keaton’s style 2

S Use of real life locations – verisimilitude (Police parade was

archive footage, see different film stock/resolution)

S Keaton chose to shoot Cops for example on the streets of LA

(critics argue Keaton films document bygone, urban

California

S Body language and physical expression very important to

Keaton films – his head movement and facial expression are

comedic

Just another screenshot but see how

demographics have been documented – in

the 1920s American cities like LA and NY

had significant Hispanic immigration

Analysis 1

S First mid shot has connotations of Keaton in jail emphasising

his ‘battles’ with modern life (bars are actually the bars of a

mansion)

S First shots and intertitle positions the spectator into

understanding Keaton is a romantic and economic failure

(aspiration and social progress linking happiness with financial

achievement)

S Keaton positions himself to ‘be identified with’ – the

stereotype of ‘loveable loser’

Representation of the anti hero

Analysis 2

S Keaton’s films encode ‘the willful suspension of disbelief’ – we

know he has effectively stolen money but he then gives it away to

a man that tricks him into giving it

S Cops plays with morality with with Keaton constantly forgiven

by the spectator – we see him as clever, funny and full of life

S Long shots and minimal close ups helped to build real time

and importantly realism – the setting is a successful, functional

American city (grand buildings represent status and achievement

– protected by the Police)

S The Police protect capitalism and consumerism

Representation of American Dream Ideology

(in tatters)

Subversion, crime and more economic failure

Analysis 3

S Innovative avant-garde aspects to The Cops included crowds

seen at the edge of the frame but also Keaton’s choice to leave

a car in the scene that was unintended (verisimilitude)

S The horse and cart is the main prop in the film that again

encodes of form of naturalism

S Clear narrative continuity is evident as a story unfolds

S The narrative is also punctuated by ‘big gags’ e.g. the traffic

Policeman ‘punched’ (twice) – this was an escapist comedy

His lack of achievement is not good enough –

he lacks economic status

Bleak narrative outcomes

One Week (1920)

S First film made by Keaton on his own – 19 min long (made at

the same time as The High Sign)

S Auteur collaboration with Producer Schenck (see later work)

S Critique on modernity e.g. pre fabricated structures. Keaton

taking a sideways swipe at modern living

S Trains and train tracks as iconic and later narrative

obsessions (see The General, 1926)

S Status, the modern world and failure to adapt as

underpinning (incorrectly built DIY house destroyed by train)

Carefully constructed, impressionistic shot

referencing modernity

Steam, modernity and futurism in Metropolis, 1927

One Week Form and Style 1

S Iris in, iris out (although a standard silent film convention)

S Notions of institution challenged (shoes thrown at wedding

instead of confetti) but also the Keaton recurring motif of

Policemen being assaulted in an amusing way

S First stunt inevitably involving moving vehicles (two cars and a

motorbike) – transportation was a key theme in Keaton’s work

S Interestingly, in terms of construction his wife is his equal

S Early cutaway to narrative ‘situations’ – the piano narrative.

One Week has a single stranded narrative

Representation of the absurd – they are still

sublimely happy after the house is built

One Week Form and Style 2

S Keaton holds on long shots and wide shots (in part due to

early, weighty moving image camera technology)

S One Week seems to have an ‘infinitely extended middle’

whereas later films were more fast moving and had a wider

range of locations

S Fourth wall challenge and spectator addressed in bath scene

(hand against lens)

S Representation of failure (recurring motif) always involving a

woman

In some Keaton films women are aspirational ‘prizes’. Here

he has won his prize and she is a co-worker

To become an obsession

Towards uncertainty, but still together

The Scarecrow (1920) 1

S This time rural settings but still wild chases (in the countryside), not in a city but transport still ending up a a focal reference

S Another Keaton/Cline collaboration

S More multi-stranded in terms of narrative than One Week –interleaved storylines (the routine of two roommates, rivalry for a woman’s affection, a mad dog, car chase, wedding et al)

S 19 minutes again of compressed time – the events would fill a 90 minute feature film

S Satirises the genre conventions of a romantic melodrama, in part through farce

The Scarecrow (1920) 2

S Significant narrative on screen time for animals, e.g. Luke

S By the time the Scarecrow was made he already had a ‘band’ of auteur collaborators (not just Cline and Schenck) but Joe Roberts as hyper masculine binary opposition to Keaton, Seely as romantic interest and Joe Keaton (Buster’s Dad) in wily old Grandpa roles

S Iconic scene – Buster and Big Joe’s inventions. Intertextualhomage paid in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure

S In The Scarecrow modernity meshes with rustic, old fashioned living (see river baptism/motorcycle end sequence)

Idiots in the country

Film Form

S Humour involves interacting with both object or surface (see invention scene), but also other protagonists

S Significant visual humour – Kubrick used symmetry to encode madness while Keaton used it as a platform to launch ‘cartoon gags’ e.g. the incongruity of the scarecrow chase (idiots in the country)

S As with Keaton films, holding on wide shots (e.g. the table)

S Underpinned by set pieces – the inventors, Luke chasing Keaton and the ‘motorcycle wedding’ end set piece that sees modernity and progress challenged (modern transport, the motorbike ends in the river)

Keaton translated this Goldberg comic into his

famous invention scene, satirising modernity

Modernity and Progress

The old ways a temporary

defeat for modernity

Kafka’s characters always were ‘outside of the

system’, alienated and marginalised –

see The High Sign

The High Sign (1921) 1

S Moves away from the romantic innocence of One Week and

The Scarecrow by having more subversive representations (see

Cops)

S An anti hero without origins: “Our Hero came from Nowhere

– he wasn’t going Anywhere and got kicked off Somewhere”.

S But, despite the criminal representation, a Keaton trope sees

his alienation from mainstream society juxtaposed with a

mastery of the mechanical world

S Chaplin intertextual reference (a tramp handling gunpowder)

Straight from theatre set design

The High Sign (1921) 2

S Again, unlike One Week or The Scarecrow The High Sign is a move

away from romantic melodrama – Miss Nickelnurser is a less

alluring representation than Seely in both of the above films

S Still a Keaton/Kline/Schenck production and still with

trademark wild chases (through secret passages)

S Back to a simplistic, single stranded narrative structure and

back to satirsing Policemen (wants to stop Tiny Tim but realises

his gun has been replaced by a banana)

S Ironic homage to the Silent Era (Miss N plays the ukulele but

the spectator can’t hear it)

She is an active protagonist and he is blind to

her needs and desires

Iris in close up visual gag

‘Big’ man versus little man narratives a

common Keaton trope

Policemen for Keaton presented themselves as

an obvious platform for a gag (see Cops)