10/11/2023 0 Comments Buster keaton movies directedThere is also some discussion of how Keaton’s stunted childhood affected his adult persona and a detailed exploration of how his relationship with his father impacted his later films. Stevens uses a late-career increase in image product licensing as one example of how Keaton sought to ensure his legacy. appears to reference the Mississippi Flood, she makes the convincing case that Buster Keaton was both influenced by his time and that time was influenced by Buster Keaton. While Stevens is limited by Buster Keaton’s limited use of twentieth-century events in his filmography, though The General takes place at the time of the Civil War and some have argued Steamboat Bill Jr. There is some precedent in film biography for this: for example, Gary Wills’s John Wayne’s America, a book similar in structure to this one, uses Wayne as a way of exploring other key figures in the western such as John Ford and Harry Carey, but also as a way of exploring cultural issues such as the Second World War on film and the Vietnam War through Wayne’s filmography. Conversely, she uses Keaton to tell a broader story of twentieth-century progress, both in film history and in history. Stevens uses meticulous research into the historical climate at the time, using a cultural methodology to assert the influence of background historical events on Keaton’s own life. In early chapters, for example, by establishing Buster’s early years as a child performer at a time when no child endangerment laws existed preventing the young Keaton from attempting or, as Stevens contends, being forced by his parents to attempt, similar stunts on stage to those he would perform as an adult. While Keaton is not directly linked to such occurrences as the First World War, Stevens shows the impact events like these would have had on the decisions he made as an artist and on his life. Stevens, in her chronological narrative of Buster’s life, applies a considered amount of historical context that allows the reader to see Keaton’s life against a backdrop of wider events. ![]() One of these facets might be preferenced over the other Stevens’s book navigates the complexities of Buster’s limitations as an actor while approaching his work from the perspective of Keaton’s role as director. Keaton biographers face a complex task ahead of them, managing Keaton’s persona as a stuntman along with his acting ability and role as an auteur. ![]() The existence of an International Buster Keaton Society also ensures that despite the relative saturation of Keaton material, this book will surely find an audience among Keaton devotees. Since positive retrospectives in the 1960s, comprehensive studies of his work and detailed analyses of each of his films have been compiled by Turconi and Savio, as well as chronological approaches by Jim Kline and Sainz. In terms of Cinema Studies, Keaton has been well analysed. ![]() James Curtis’s book Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life considers Keaton once again in terms of biography, rather than simply examining his output. Though Chaplin lived longer, Keaton’s life in its vastness, stretching nearly a century, as Stevens points out, invites approaches from a historical perspective. Dana Stevens, the well-respected chief film critic of Slate, goes even further with her book, which seeks to link Keaton to early twentieth-century progress. For instance, the late director and film historian Peter Bogdanovich championed Keaton in his last years, making him the subject of a 2018 documentary, The Great Buster: A Celebration. Andrew Corsiniĭuring his lifetime, Buster Keaton faced many comparisons to Charlie Chaplin it is therefore ironic that now, many years after his death, he is on the receiving end of various reappraisals that compare him favourably to his great rival. Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, by Dana Stevens.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |