I confess I thought it
was pretentious to say you liked Buster Keaton. I mean, it is rare enough
to like silent movies, imagine liking silent movies that are not Chaplin’s.
After watching one of Keaton’s
movies I have to reconsider and proclaim myself to be a big fan of him. The
more I hear about his life, the more I wish I were his friend. Or at least I
wished I were around when he released his movies, as opposed to being around
when they released Avatar.
The first Keaton movie I saw was
Sherlock Jr. I watch it as a part of an assignment for a “Literature and
Cinema” class. For this same class, I had previously watched Chaplin’s City Lights, ModernTimes and The Pawn Shop. Chaplin fans forgive me, but I hated every single
one of them.
Firstly, because that silly little smile of his never really
convinced or touched me. So, one of the first things that I liked about Keaton
was his motionless, dead serious face.
Secondly and much more importantly, it’s
just like in that song by The Smiths, you know: “because the music they constantly play
says nothing to me about my life”. As far as I know, Chaplin movies have the same message, they don’t allow different levels of interpretation. While
a movie like Sherlock Jr., for example, is pretty much the story of my life.
In Sherlock Jr., Keaton’s character works at a movie
theater and wants to be a detective. When he faces difficulties in his love life he turns to movies to
figure out what to do. He actually copies the way things are done in movies in
his own life. Now, to what level do we do the same thing? In what ways is that positive or negative?
All these questions are raised while we are entertained in this hilarious
comedy.
To make a long post short, Keaton is
the best. Stay tuned because next week I’ll do a post on cool facts about him to make you even more in love with him.
Have you seen Sherlock Jr.?
Chaplin, Keaton or both?
PS: You can watch the whole movie on YouTube.
