Sunday, July 8, 2012

Buster Keaton: A Wonderful World of Slapstick


Buster Keaton was a genius.

But you don’t need me to tell you that. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

One of the things I love about movies is that there are so many of them, a galaxy of motion pictures of every variety: some long, some short, some in color, some in black and white, some silent, some talkie, there are comedies, dramas, war pictures, gangster films, swashbucklers, romances, epics, science fiction films, horror pictures, westerns, films that deal with the fate of the universe and films that speak of the minutia of the soul. And because there’s so much out there, there’s always something new to discover.

I recently discovered Buster Keaton.

Oh, sure, I had seen The General and Sherlock, Jr. before, but, much like the man who found a huge gold nugget and used it as a doorstop; I didn’t know what I had found.