More importantly, the sequence functions as a parody of the Tong clichés in US pop culture, presenting the concept as inherently absurd. As a minor point, we see dozens of genuine Asian-Americans getting a payday here, as opposed to white actors in makeup considering that Keaton’s films weren’t above blackface gags, this is something to be grateful for. Yes it is now let’s go beyond the obvious and into nuance. Modern commenters duly acknowledge that this Tong war is a cultural stereotype. The third act mostly takes place in Chinatown, where a dragon parade erupts into a “Tong War” with Buster and his camera at the still center of the screen’s riot. Yes, it’s homo-erotic, and the swimming sequence is filled with many openly erotic tensions culminating in our hero’s apparent nudity. They travel by omnibus and spend time at a public indoor pool, where the camera impassively records a hilarious sequence of Buster and a stranger (Edward Brophy) disrobing in the same small booth. Buster’s date with the very likable Sally is another portrait of a young working couple looking for fun in the city, as in King Vidor‘s The Crowd of earlier the same year. The wonderful long second act has nothing to do with photography. Apropos of that point, I love how PopMatters’ Colin Fitzgerald pegs this movie as a comment on MGM’s arrogant relationship to independent artists like Keaton. His first efforts at newsreel photography display a barrage of avant-garde effects that wouldn’t be out of place in Dziga Vertov‘s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), but the boss (Sidney Bracey) doesn’t appreciate it even if the viewer does. (A more crucial use of offscreen revelation will figure in the film’s ending.) Buster convinces Sally to have her picture taken before she disappears with overbearing photographer Stagg (Harold Goodwin), an animal-sexual name signaling aggressive territoriality.īuster tracks Sally to her office, where she encourages him to try his luck in this new-fangled newsreel game after he trades his tintype camera for another man-sized impediment on a tripod, a still out-of-date newsreel model that tilts and sags like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Frantic modern life has jammed them briefly together, as in a subway car or some other public conveyance (which also figure in the plot), so that he’s ready to pass out from her intoxicating hair in his face.Īn effective use of offscreen space finds the camera panning to the right to reveal that, while it seemed Sally was the only person remaining from the paper melee, Buster too stands offside like a bit of flotsam. The point is that Buster and his old-fashioned livelihood are swamped by this whirlwind that vanishes as quickly as it appears, and the second point is that he meets and is smitten by Sally (Marceline Day), who works for MGM Newsreels. One of the film’s minor motifs is the evanescent nature of fame and popularity, a point underlined by a dialogue reference to herbal tonic inventor, Lydia Pinkham. In commentary retained from a 2004 DVD, historian Glenn Mitchell identifies stock newsreel footage of Gertrude Eberle, first woman to swim the English Channel. When he lines up a customer for a shot, the previously empty street and sidewalk are abruptly overwhelmed with hundreds of people as tons of paper pour down from the heavens for a ticker-tape parade in honor of some celebrity. These details show Buster as out of step with the modern world and also handicapped by carrying around his bulky camera like a cello. The Cameraman opens with Buster as Buster, a street photographer who makes tintypes, a very outmoded gimmick for earning a living. Ever since seeing them together at Berkeley’s UC Theatre in the late 1980s, I’ve thought these films are as funny and characteristic as any of Keaton’s other silent masterpieces, although they’ve tended to get short shrift. This Criterion Blu-ray of a new 4K digital restoration of Buster Keaton‘s The Cameraman (1928) is actually a double-feature with his next and last silent feature, Spite Marriage (1929), although you don’t realize that without reading the fine print on the back.
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