The General

It is said that there are some directors who when you watch their films, that is all you need to know about making a movie. Hitchcock usually falls under this category, as does Welles, but I would make room for Buster Keaton.

Keaton has made a slow but steady rise to the annals of film history, even though he remained popular in his hey-day, his films weren't as revered as say Charlie Chaplin or even Harold Lloyd. Times have changed, and Keaton has now eclipsed both his silent contemporaries as a master of cinema. It's difficult to talk about just one of Keaton's films, in his list of Great Movies, Roger Ebert payed Keaton a high compliment by not just focusing on one of his films, but instead bunching them all together in one essay simply called "The Films of Buster Keaton", he doesn't do that to any other director.

But there is of course "The General", if there is one film most talked about in Keaton's canon, it is this film, his most well known, and according to most including Keaton himself it's his best.

I've seen "The General" many times like I do all my favorite films, it was in fact the first silent film I had ever seen, it was actually the only silent film my local movie store had. I still chuckle at the film from time to time, even though I know all the gags inside out, when I watch to movie now, I mostly stand in awe at how it is constructed.

The story has Keaton as a civil war engineer named Johnny, he has two loves in his life his train engine and his Annabelle (Marion Mack). When war breaks out, Johnny is the first to enlist, but the army reject him thinking he's more valuable as an engineer. Annabelle mistakes this as Johnny being a coward and she tells him never to see her until he is in uniform. A year goes by, Johnny brings his engine into Annabelle's town, when both her and his train are taken by enemy hijackers; so begins an astounding chase sequence as Johnny goes to regain his two true loves, not only that but he must also warn about an oncoming attack.

It wasn't till recently when I watched "The General" just how much Keaton shows in his frame, and just how much he can show without cutaways. I was surprised just how little Keaton relies on close-ups, he keeps things rather wide, but it works well with his brand of comedy. Everything is visual, it's how Keaton reacts to his surroundings that make his comedy so memorable. Chaplin was known for his performance, gaining sympathy by using close-ups, there isn't anything wrong with that, he also used wide shots to pull of wonderful gag sequences, yet Keaton's gags seem more complex.

One of my favorite moments in the film is when Keaton is loading a canon on his train to fire at the enemies in front of him. Once he lights the canon, he becomes stuck, suddenly he finds myself eyeing the barrel of the canon, the sequence becomes both amusing and a bit scary. Timing becomes everything as the train hits a turn in the tracks just as the canon goes off avoiding Keaton and at the same time coming close to shooting his enemies. I find this scene to be a quintessential Keaton moment, Keaton stays in the realm of reality, the canon fire could've been resolved within a simple cutaway, but we are kept in real time, we see the situation played as it would in real circumstances, it's all about timing, and just dumb luck.

There is another beautiful shot of Keaton and Mack now being chased by a train; all in one take, we see the enemy soldiers jump from their train onto Keaton's cart, the camera pans over to show Keaton heroically unhooking the cart with the soldiers on it, thus evading them.

"The General" is full of many of these moments, but Keaton is also a master of the smaller bits of comedy, he also doesn't hog the spotlight, he has much fun at Mack's expense showing her ineptness at the gravity of the situation. At one point after staving off a chasing train, Keaton is astonished to see Mack sweeping the engine, almost to bring a bit of normalcy in the hectic situation. There are also multiple times where Mack is given control of the engine which she always seems to move backwards towards the enemies. Mack is certainly an MVP in this film and unlike much of the women in Chaplin films who are idealized, she's able to join in the fun.

It's hard to pinpoint one scene or one moment in "The General" that truly sticks out above others, it's all a pure whole, it's one of the very few films you could argue is perfect. You can't take away one shot, it is all necessary, it's also hilarious.

Comedy is often regarded as light fare, yet when an artist like Keaton comes along, he's able to make it seem so sublime, he can lift it to something memorable, and even philosophical. You can see in his films the way Keaton viewed life, when compared to Chaplin, he seems more grounded in a reality. Keaton was a realist, where Chaplin was a romantic, I happen to love both comedians for different reasons. But Keaton just might have the edge, he's easier to root for, he's self-made and doesn't ask for sympathy, he fights at what the world throws at him, he tries to make sense of its unpredictability and chaos and moves on as best as he could. Keaton was always a mover, there is hardly a moment in "The General" where anything stops, it's constantly going forward. Perhaps the best metaphor for Keaton's comedy comes in "The General", again in real time, Keaton is at the very front of a train with a giant beam in his hands, the train comes close to another beam on the track. Without thinking he takes the one in his hands to knock the other one off the tracks, the train moves forward, Keaton avoided catastrophe, it was both heroic and funny, Keaton always acted above and beyond the call of duty.