The Saddest Clown

One of the first comedies I have any immediate memory of watching is Buster Keaton's 'The General'. I recall sitting in front of the television with a bowl of popcorn in my lap and staring at that silent wonder. Oddly enough, I have no memory of actually laughing. But then, I never laughed at 'A Night at the Opera' until I was much older, either. But there must have been something in the sad-faced, unsmiling, intensely likable little clown that made me love him, because I watched 'The General' over and over again, on an old VHS rented from a college library. Now, several years since then, I am a film student. If I wanted to, I could analyze every joke, every sight gag, and try to discern why it works. I could attempt a genre analysis, or question where Keaton's sympathetic representation of the South during the Civil War fits into the contemporary historical discourse. But all of that, while interesting in itself, would do nothing to contribute to that warm, wonderful feeling I had when I was eight years old, when cinema's saddest clown first popped up on my television screen.

'The General' might be Keaton's best known film--it is the one the tends to appear on Best Comedy lists. But in many ways, as time has gone on, I find myself preferring his more manic works: 'Our Hospitality', 'Sherlock Jr.', 'Steamboat Bill Jr.', 'College', etc. Most of the set-ups are intended to showcase Keaton's remarkable physical talent: the storm at the end of 'Steamboat', the various athletic activities in 'College', the ever-present chase sequences in 'Hospitality' and 'Sherlock'. 'The General', in this sense, is his most perfectly realized narrative film, in that it constructs a story interesting in itself, that would hold the viewer's attention even without the gags. Try as I might, I cannot quite recall the entire story of 'Sherlock Jr.', except that it involves a dream sequence, a damsel in distress, and a typically useless detective who saves the day.

It's difficult to even attempt to write about Keaton because his work, more so even than that of his silent-era compatriots, is so visual, the very embodiment of pure cinema. Keaton rarely, if ever, smiles in his pictures, yet he is never dour. The audience never truly laughs at him, as we do at the violence perpetrated by the Three Stooges, because he is the likable little guy. More often than not, he is also very perspicacious. In 'Our Hospitality', he concocts scheme after scheme to keep from the leaving the house of his enemies who, following their genteel Southern code, will not kill him as long as he's a guest in their home. And the way he avoids leaving the house is a sight to behold, rushing in and out of doors, faking out the two brothers and their father who try their best to get him to leave. At the conclusion of the picture, after he has rescued the girl he loves in a miraculous (and seemingly effortless) feat of daring involving a log, a rope and a waterfall, the men of the family discover him and the daughter embracing in her room, having just been married. As the men put down their guns and welcome him to the family, Keaton watches them warily. And then, in the best gag the film has yet offered, he proceeds to unload a veritable stockpile of weaponry from his clothes. The little clown was prepared for all eventualities.

Keaton's career was ultimately a sad one.  Like so many of his silent-era compatriots, the advent of sound injured his box office take.  He succumbed to the travails of alcoholism and appeared in only a handful of films, among them as a washed up silent star in 'Sunset Boulevard'.  His last great performance was as Charlie Chaplin's old partner in 'Limelight' in which, for five glorious minutes, the two greatest clowns of the silent screen proved yet again that one does not need noisy jokes or silly voices to make perfect comedy.  Just the brilliance, the sheer genius, to know what makes people laugh.  

It is easy to be nostalgic for those good ol' days, particularly when the best comedians today have little to offer but scatological humor and tired re-treads of the same old schtick.  It would do to remember that men like Keaton made the least humorous things funny: poverty, war, starvation, natural disasters.  Keaton found the absurdity in such devastating occurrences.  He made sure that the little guy always won.  After Dane Cook, Will Ferrell, and the Apatow Factory have all gone the way of the dodo, the saddest clown will still remain, an unsmiling reminder of just how funny life can be.