Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker, Publishers Weekly, and NPR
In this genre-defying “new kind of history” (The New Yorker), film critic of Slate places comedy legend and acclaimed filmmaker Buster Keaton’s unique creative genius in the context of his time.
Born the same year as the film industry in 1895, Buster Keaton began his career as the child star of a family slapstick act reputed to be the most violent in vaudeville.
Beginning in his early twenties, he enjoyed a decade-long stretch as the director, star, stuntman, editor, and all-around mastermind of some of the greatest silent comedies ever made, including Sherlock Jr., The General, and The Cameraman.
Even through his dark middle years as a severely depressed alcoholic finding work on the margins of show business, Keaton’s life had a way of reflecting the changes going on in the world. He found success in three different mediums at their creative peak: fvaudeville, silent film, and the early years of television.
Over the course of his action-packed seventy years, his life trajectory intersected with such influential figures as the escape artist Harry Houdini, the pioneering Black stage comedian Bert Williams, TV legend Lucille Ball, and literary innovators like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Samuel Beckett.
In Camera Man, film critic Dana Stevens pulls the lens out from Keaton’s life and work to look at concurrent developments in entertainment, journalism, law, technology, the political and social status of women, and the popular understanding of addiction. With erudition and sparkling humor, Stevens hopscotches among disciplines to bring us up to the present day, when Keaton’s breathtaking (and sometimes life-threatening) stunts remain more popular than ever as they circulate on the internet in the form of viral gifs.
Far more than a biography or work of film history, Camera Man is a meditation on modernity that paints a complex portrait of a one-of-a-kind artist.
Buster” Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker, best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. His stoic, deadpan facial expression became his trademark, earning him the nickname “The Great Stone Face.”
Keaton was a child vaudeville star, performing as part of his family’s traveling act. As an adult, he began working with independent producer Joseph M. Schenck and filmmaker Edward F. Cline, with whom he made two-reel comedies in the early 1920s, including One Week (1920), The Playhouse (1921), Cops (1922), and The Electric House (1922).
He then moved to feature films, invluding the clssics Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), and The Cameraman (1928).
The General is his most acclaimed work: Orson Welles considered it “the greatest comedy ever made…and perhaps the greatest film ever made.”
Keaton’s career declined after 1928, when he signed with MGMayer and lost his artistic independence. His first wife divorced him, and he descended into alcoholism. He was fired from MGM in 1933, ending his career as leading man in features. He recovered in the 1940s, marrying Eleanor Norris and working as comic performer until the end of his life. During this period, he made cameos in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight (1952), and various TV programs.
He earned an Honorary Oscar Award in 1959.
For critic Roger Ebert, Keaton was ‘”the greatest actor-director in the history of the movies” due to his prolific career and consistent artistic quality, especially in 1920-1929.
In 1996, EW recognized Keaton as the seventh-greatest director: “his films offer belly laughs of mind-boggling physical invention and spacey determination that nears philosophical grandeur.”
In 1999, the AFI ranked him as the 21st-greatest male star of classic Hollywood cinema.
