Buster Keaton summary

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Buster Keaton, orig. Joseph Francis Keaton IV, (born Oct. 4, 1895, Piqua, Kan., U.S.—died Feb. 1, 1966, Woodland Hills, Calif.), U.S. film actor and director. He acted with his parents in vaudeville (1899–1917), where he developed his mastery of comic falls and subtle timing and his trademark deadpan expression. His film debut in Fatty Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy (1917) was followed by several short films (1917–19). As head of his own production company (1920–28) he directed and starred in classic silent movies such as The Navigator (1924), Sherlock, Jr. (1924), The General (1927), and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). For MGM he made The Cameraman (1928), but he was denied artistic control over his films, and his career declined. He later appeared in Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Limelight (1952). From the late 1940s his comedies were gradually revived, and he is now regarded as one of the greatest silent comedy stars.

directing Summary

Directing, the craft of controlling the evolution of a performance out of material composed or assembled by an author. The performance may be live, as in a theatre and in some broadcasts, or it may be recorded, as in motion pictures and the majority of broadcast material. The term is also used in

acting Summary

Acting, the performing art in which movement, gesture, and intonation are used to realize a fictional character for the stage, for motion pictures, or for television. (Read Lee Strasberg’s 1959 Britannica essay on acting.) Acting is generally agreed to be a matter less of mimicry, exhibitionism, or

comedy Summary

Comedy, type of drama or other art form the chief object of which, according to modern notions, is to amuse. It is contrasted on the one hand with tragedy and on the other with farce, burlesque, and other forms of humorous amusement. The classic conception of comedy, which began with Aristotle in

film Summary

Film, series of still photographs on film, projected in rapid succession onto a screen by means of light. Because of the optical phenomenon known as persistence of vision, this gives the illusion of actual, smooth, and continuous movement. (Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film