Tonight at CSUN we had a Buster Keaton double feature. The first film was called "Three Ages" (1923), a look at love in the Stone Age, the Roman Age, and the Modern Age (as it was 100 years ago). The scenes from the Stone Age had the distinction of being shot in Chatsworth at the Garden Of The Gods giant sandstone formations off of Santa Susana Pass Road, which as you probably know, I have visited and photographed on several occasions. I was aware of Westerns being filmed there, including parts of "Stagecoach" w/ John Wayne, but I was not aware that Buster Keaton had used the Garden also. It was a lot of fun to see familiar rocks & boulders with Buster and his actors running around on them, dressed in Caveman outfits. The rocks look exactly the same of course. They probably looked exactly the same 10,000 years ago. I think tomorrow I may drive over to the Garden Of The Gods, just to look for some exact location set-ups from the movie. It will be fun. :)
The other movie we saw was "Our Hospitality", a much more sophisticated film with a developed story, rather than just a series of skits, as was "Three Ages". In fact, "Our Hospitality", which was also made in 1923 (and therefore also a Silent film) has been credited by some film historians as being the first comedy film to have a complete dramatic storyline, with the comedy interspersed rather than featured. Prior to this film - so they say - silent comedy was purely about Yuks, which were generated by skits and sketches. Any story in the very early days was minimal. "Our Hospitality" changed all of that. The plot revolves around a good old American Family Feud from the early 1800s, like that of the Hatfields and the McCoys (Buster plays "John McKay").
Some of the best scenes in the movie involve a crazy, makeshift railroad made out of bent and curved tracks, and a train made of old stagecoaches pulled by a rickety engine car. These scenes are so inventive that they have the feel of a cartoon, where anything is possible. I have only been watching Buster Keaton's work for two weeks now, and I was not familiar with him before that, but even in this brief exposure I can see why Roger Ebert called him the greatest Actor/Director of all time. Keaton does it all : he writes the story, directs it, acts the lead role, and on top of that, and most importantly because this is 100 years ago, he is also creating the state of the art for cinematic comedy.
Remember that there were only a handful of comedic geniuses at the beginning of cinema. Chaplin, Lloyd, Arbuckle, Keaton. Acts like Laurel & Hardy and The Marx Brothers were later on. Of the top three early auteurs - Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton, it was Buster who did it all, and who invented the most imaginative setups. Harold Lloyd matched Keaton for physically daring stunts, and made some great movies as well, and Charlie Chaplin made movies as grand statements on society, but only Buster Keaton did The Whole Thing.
I sat and watched in the Armer Theater at CSUN tonight with an audience made up mostly of students, and it was great to hear them laughing at certain points throughout both films. This is something I mentioned last week, that Keaton's work was very hip, and that an audience from any generation would get it. Tonight I saw that. Buster would've thought it was cool. :)
"Three Ages" is fun, mostly for Garden Of The Gods, but it is "Our Hospitality" that I would recommend highly for movie fans willing to give Silent Comedy a chance. Each film is about 65 minutes long, and so not a huge time investment. But the payoff is huge, because you get taken on a trip to Buster Keaton's world, from a century ago, and you get to see where a lot of modern movie comedy originated from. Except - nobody today would try even half of the stuff Keaton pulled off.
Well, as you can see I am having a blast watching these movies for the first time. Part of the appeal is also the opportunity to go back in time, which is another form of travel. I have always felt comfortable imagining myself in earlier decades or generations dating back to.....oh, I'd guess around 1870 or so.
But I really love the 1920s through the 1950s, the thirty year period before I was born. And I mostly only know those decades through watching movies and - in some cases - old tv shows. So it's all because of the imagery I have seen. I was not actually there, but the imagery created by Hollywood makes me feel as if I was there. And I love that feeling, because it feels like good times in good places.
That is all the news for today. I did not see any posts from the SB, but Elizabeth if you are reading, I hope things are going okay. :):)
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