The Great Buster

source: The Great Buster

For the uninitiated, this would probably merit 8 stars-- it's an agreeable enough introduction to Buster Keaton if you know nothing about the guy and it's presented in a modern, snappy style that isn't too academic. At 100 minutes, it does not outstay its welcome either. However, as someone who's been a Keaton fanatic since 2010 and who counts him as her favorite filmmaker of all time, this documentary offered me nothing new. It's far less in-depth than the excellent Kevin Brownlow documentary from the 1980s (sadly kept out of print due to legal hang-ups) and has a weird structure, not bothering with looking at the feature films until after going over Keaton's entire life. It's fine and seeing Buster appreciated in any way always puts a smile on my face, but it's mostly treading water.

Buster deserved better. Better editing would go a long way to make a wonderful film. Still, if you're a fan as I am you'll enjoy it, especially the silent clips and the discussions with some of his fans.

What a disappointment! As a huge Buster Keaton fan, I was really looking forward to Peter Bogdanovich's documentary, but it was just awful. I came away with absolutely no insight to Buster's inner character, why he made certain choices in his life, or even little tidbits like his hobbies or whether or not he liked animals. The entire ninety minutes could be summed up as "Here are five quick facts about Buster Keaton: he started in vaudeville with his family, he made silent movies with elaborate stunts, his career took a nosedive after talkies, and he made a comeback in television and commercials." There's very little else you will gleam from this documentary, which is a crying shame. Bogdanovich was a major reason why this movie was so bad. As writer, director, and narrator, I held him directly responsible for the lack of personal information included. In the section of the documentary when Keaton was making his feature-length silent films, Bogdanovich actually told the audience, "More on that later." He skipped to the invention of talking pictures, skimmed through the rest of Keaton's life, and then after the funeral, he disjointedly cut back to the 1920s silent films. The last half hour was merely footage of Keaton's films run under Bogdanovich's commentary of his interpretations and opinions of the movies. No offense, but his opinions have no relevance to a documentary on Keaton's life. If Bogdanovich wanted to release an anthology of his film critiques, he should have done so. But to take up one-third of the running time with "Here's what I think of this scene" is egocentric and immaterial. If he didn't want to end the documentary on the "downer" tone of Keaton's funeral, he could have wrapped it up with all the young comedians interviewed saying that Keaton was a great inspiration and continues to be remembered in the present day. Also, Bogdanovich's constant narration was told in the present tense, which was not only inaccurate (In 2018, Buster does not "go" to Hollywood; he "went" to Hollywood) but it was incredibly jarring when the other interviewees all spoke in the past tense. So, while I enjoyed seeing Dick Van Dyke, Richard Lewis, Carl Reiner, and Mel Brooks talking about Keaton's influence, the rest wasn't worth watching. The younger folks seemed out of place, put in the lineup quite obviously to secure more viewership, especially since they didn't contribute any information besides "the Great Stone Face is awesome." For all you'll learn from this documentary, you might as well watch the Donald O'Connor biopic instead - which ironically, this movie insults for its lack of correct information.

While maybe not the most definitive look at the man, this does a great job of explaining why and showing why he was so great and will leave you wanting to track down all of his movies you can. IF you've seen lots already and already love him, it's not really much new, unless you really wanted to know what Johnny Knoxville thinks... That said, Keaton was amazing so this is well worth watching.

In 2018 Peter Bogdanovich (also the narrator) made this documentary about one of the greatest comedians ever lived. The Great Buster tells about who else but Buster Keaton (1895-1966). This silent film comedian lived a pretty interesting life, and for those who want to learn about this man, must take a look of this movie. And then there are those fantastic clips from the classic movies he did. It's most excellent to see the great storm scene from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) and then we see clips from the future movies where they copied Buster. And of course Keaton was known from doing his own stunts, and it's unbelievable to see that stuff. He was a true acrobat, ever since he was a little kid doing the vaudeville show with his parents. But how he was able to do all those crazy stunts, that even Buster didn't seem to know. Here we also see the decline of a great career with the coming of the talkies and one bad decision. And the new rise later in his career. Of course a documentary wouldn't be so interesting, if it didn't have a bunch of interesting people talking about the subject. And here there are many, some of which personally knew the man. One of them is Norman Lloyd (104 years old here!), who acted alongside Keaton and Charlie Chaplin in Limelight (1952). And the fellow comedians Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner talk about the master. Dick Van Dyke shares his fascinating memories of Buster. As does his close friend James Karen. Then there are names like Paul Dooley, Werner Herzog, Bill Irwin, Richard Lewis, Leonard Maltin, Cybill Shepherd, French Stewart and Quentin Tarantino. In archive footage you see Dick Cavett and Orson Welles. Besides those I especially enjoyed the clips of commercials as an older man. Great work by Bogdanovich about a great comedian, yet flawed as a man.

Unfortunate. This is an excellent piece of history,and combines two elements key in documentaries: (1) It allows a novice to get up to speed, while (2) Informing and entertaining those already familiar with the one of the giants of early film-making. The biography comes first, followed by the high point -- the second half of the film dwells on Keaton's 10 or so feature length films. Other than the unneeded inclusion of several younger comedians who could not have had any contact with Buster or his contemporaries, this is top notch.

If you are not familiar with Buster Keaton, I guess this is not a bad place to start. However, unlike it's subject matter, this documentary is quite mediocre. In this age of great documentaries, this one still starts and ends in a traditional way - by starting with Buster's birth, career, etc. Even structurally, the docu is not well thought-out, suddenly showing a greatest-hits type compilation at the end, after having finished Buster's life story with his death. It has nothing new to add or show, except a few talking heads on what Buster meant to them. Most of these had either no connection to Buster, or they are not appropriate people to speak to (I mean, do you really care what Johnny Knoxville thinks of Buster Keaton?) It's a pretty lazy piece of film-making that is also not very well-researched.If you can, try to catch the three-part 1987 British docu called "Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow".

I cannot understand why all the prints shown in this homage to Keaton are so washed out as to make the viewer blind. There are fine prints of many of his works, certainly I've seen excellent copies of The General, why not use them. Even modern titles like bits of Sunset Boulevard are show washed out. What gives?

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 Buster's work is available if you want to see it and are willing to pay a bit extra for stuff that's out of print. Yet Peter Bogdanovich's documentary tells the same story now. albeit with some clips from the 1960s, and kind words from Quentin Tarrantino and Bill Hader: can't get the young kids in unless there's someone they've heard of. I 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 won'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 Keaton's films and his life, it quickly becomes far more complicated than that. So what you are left with are the clips of Buster's stunts. And 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 don'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.