The Great Buster (2018)

The Great Buster: Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. With Peter Bogdanovich, Dick Cavett, Frank Capra, James Curtis. Documentary on the life and works of comic genius Buster Keaton, directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

“I became aware of Buster Keaton in the early 1970s, when THE GENERAL played on PBS, and I bought and read his ghost-written MY WONDERFUL WORLD OF SLAPSTICK. Those were the days when all we had were memoirs with a few stills. Now, almost half a century later, almost all of Busteru0026#39;s work is available if you want to see it and are willing to pay a bit extra for stuff thatu0026#39;s out of print. Yet Peter Bogdanovichu0026#39;s documentary tells the same story now. albeit with some clips from the 1960s, and kind words from Quentin Tarrantino and Bill Hader: canu0026#39;t get the young kids in unless thereu0026#39;s someone theyu0026#39;ve heard of.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI understand that. We want people to give Buster a try, and centenarian Norman Lloyd talking about being on the set when Chaplin and Keaton were working together wonu0026#39;t do it. Also, the story as offered is a wonderful, simple one that offers a beautiful narrative: great artist makes fatal mistake, then struggles back thanks to the love of a good woman. Yet, once you delve deeper into Keatonu0026#39;s films and his life, it quickly becomes far more complicated than that. So what you are left with are the clips of Busteru0026#39;s stunts.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd what stunts they are! People may argue endlessly about who the greatest slapstick pratfaller was, but no one will ever dispute that Keaton was among the best, and because of that, he created grand gag sequences that no one but Jackie Chan has ever come close to equaling. So if you donu0026#39;t know Keaton, beware. The story, like all finite stories, is hopelessly simplistic and at times false — Keaton had a lot more control over his Educational shorts than this movie would have you believe, for one — but take a look at it anyway, for the many clips and short sequences. Because the things this movie gets right is that Buster was one of the greatest film makers of the 1920s, and a daring and enormously effective comedian and actor.”