Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts

Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts
Author: James L. Neibaur
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2013-01-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 081088741X

By the mid-1920s, Buster Keaton had established himself as one of the geniuses of cinema with such films as Sherlock, Jr., The Navigator, and his 1927 work The General, which was the highest ranked silent on the American Film Institute's survey of the 100 greatest films. Before Keaton ventured into longer works, however, he had honed his skills as an actor, writer, and director of short films produced in the early 1920s. In Buster Keaton’s Silent Shorts: 1920-1923, James L. Neibaur and Terri Niemi provide a film-by-film assessment of these brilliant two-reelers. The authors discuss the significance of each short—The High Sign, One Week, Convict 13, The Scarecrow, Neighbors, The Haunted House, Hard Luck, The Goat, The Playhouse, The Boat, The Paleface, Cops, My Wife’s Relations, The Blacksmith, Frozen North, Daydreams, The Electric House, The Balloonatic, and The Love Nest—to the Keaton filmography, as well as each film’s importance to cinema. Offering a clear and in-depth perspective on these 19 films, the authors explain what makes these shorts effective and why they’re funny. Buster Keaton’s Silent Shorts will enlighten both scholars and casual fans alike about the early work produced by one of cinema's most gifted comedians and filmmakers.

Keaton's Silent Shorts

Keaton's Silent Shorts
Author: Gabriella Oldham
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2010-08-20
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0809385945

Filling a major gap in the critical canon, Keaton’s Classic Shorts: Beyond the Laughter chronicles the rapid growth in the filmmaker’s understanding of what makes both comedy and film successful. Keaton developed his major themes in these nineteen silent short films shot between 1920 and 1923, creating his persona “Buster” with his trademark stone face. These short films clearly indicate Keaton’s love of the camera and his concern for composition, symmetry, and images that delight the eye and startle the mind. Oldham reconstructs each of these rarely seen films to enable the reader to “watch” Keaton’s performance, devoting a separate chapter to each. She analyzes each film’s strengths, weaknesses, and prevalent themes and threads. She also enables readers to plumb the depths of what seems to be surface comedy through philosophical, biographical, historical, and critical commentary, thus linking the shorts together into a cohesive study of Buster Keaton’s growth through his three-year independent venture as a filmmaker. Beyond the laughter and beyond the great stone face, Oldham presents a treasure of cinema comedy and a unique philosophy of life as captured by a great filmmaker.

Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts, 1920-1923

Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts, 1920-1923
Author: James L. Neibaur
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2013
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0810887401

By the mid-1920s, Buster Keaton had established himself as one of the geniuses of cinema with such films as Sherlock, Jr., The Navigator, and his 1927 work The General, which was the highest ranked silent on the American Film Institute's survey of the 100 greatest films. Before Keaton ventured into longer works, however, he had honed his skills as an actor, writer, and director of short films produced in the early 1920s. In Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts: 1920-1923, James L. Neibaur and Terri Niemi provide a film-by-film assessment of these brilliant two-reelers. The authors discuss the significance of each short--The High Sign, One Week, Convict 13, The Scarecrow, Neighbors, The Haunted House, Hard Luck, The Goat, The Playhouse, The Boat, The Paleface, Cops, My Wife's Relations, The Blacksmith, Frozen North, Daydreams, The Electric House, The Balloonatic, and The Love Nest--to the Keaton filmography, as well as each film's importance to cinema. Offering a clear and in-depth perspective on these 19 films, the authors explain what makes these shorts effective and why they're funny. Buster Keaton's Silent Shorts will enlighten both scholars and casual fans alike about the early work produced by one of cinema's most gifted comedians and filmmakers.

Buster Keaton Remembered

Buster Keaton Remembered
Author: Eleanor Keaton
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2001-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

In this unique illustrated survey of Keaton's career, Eleanor Keaton, his wife of 26 years, & film historian Jeffrey Vance provide a personal account of this icon of American cinema. - Tie in with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.

Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr.
Author: Andrew Horton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 1997
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521485661

On the film Sherlock Jr. directed by Buster Keaton

The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928)

The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928)
Author: James L. Neibaur
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2012-07-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0810885301

Harry Langdon was a silent screen comedian unlike any other. Slower in pace, more studied in movement, and quirkier in nature, Langdon challenged the comic norm by offering comedies that were frequently edgy and often surreal. After a successful run of short comedies with Mack Sennett, Langdon became his own producer at First National Pictures, making such features as Tramp Tramp Tramp, The Strong Man, and Long Pants before becoming his own director for Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble. In The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928), film historian James Neibaur examines Langdon's strange, fascinating work during the silent era, when he made landmark films that were often ahead of their time. Extensively reviewing the comedian's silent screen work film by film, Neibaur makes the case that Langdon should be accorded the same lofty status as his contemporaries: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With fascinating insights into the work of an under-appreciated artist, this book will be of interest to both fans and scholars of silent cinema.

A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen

A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen
Author: Arthur J. Pomeroy
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2017-06-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1118741447

A comprehensive treatment of the Classical World in film and television, A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen closely examines the films and TV shows centered on Greek and Roman cultures and explores the tension between pagan and Christian worlds. Written by a team of experts in their fields, this work considers productions that discuss social settings as reflections of their times and as indicative of the technical advances in production and the economics of film and television. Productions included are a mix of Hollywood and European spanning from the silent film era though modern day television series, and topics discussed include Hollywood politics in film, soundtrack and sound design, high art and low art, European art cinemas, and the ancient world as comedy. Written for students of film and television as well as those interested in studies of ancient Rome and Greece, A Companion to Ancient Greece and Rome on Screen provides comprehensive, current thinking on how the depiction of Ancient Greece and Rome on screen has developed over the past century. It reviews how films of the ancient world mirrored shifting attitudes towards Christianity, the impact of changing techniques in film production, and fascinating explorations of science fiction and technical fantasy in the ancient world on popular TV shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, and Dr. Who.

Camera Man

Camera Man
Author: Dana Stevens
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1501134205

They were calling it the Twentieth Century -- "She is a little animal, surely" -- "He's my son, and I'll break his neck any way I want to" -- "The locomotive of juveniles" -- A little hell-raising Huck Finn -- The boy who couldn't be damaged -- "Make me laugh, Keaton" -- Speed mania in the kingdom of shadows -- Pancakes at Childs -- Comique -- Roscoe -- Brooms -- Mabel at the wheel -- Famous players in famous plays -- Home, made -- Rice, shoes, and real estate -- The shadow stage -- Battle-scarred risibilities -- One for you, one for me -- The "darkie shuffle" -- The collapsing façade -- Grief slipped in -- The road through the mountain -- Not a drinker, a drunk -- Old times -- The coming thing in entertainment -- Coda: Eleanor.