A wonderful tribute and starting point to explore one of American silent cinema’s greatest exponents, judiciously put together by narrator-director Bogdanovich.

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Buster Keaton. The name conjures up what now, a century later, seems like an imaginary past.  It was the roaring ’20s.  The advent of sound was right around the corner, but Keaton, like his silent era compatriots Charles Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, remained unfazed. 

The ’20s was Keaton’s greatest decade as a consummate artist—some of his best-known films were made, including Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926) and Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). 

In The Great Buster, Peter Bogdanovich, a filmmaker (and also historian) most famous for The Last Picture Show (1971), decided to place Keaton’s most accomplished era in the third act.

“Don’t move Charlie, you are in the centre of the shot.”

This was a shrewd strategy as it not only completed his documentary on a celebratory note, but allowed audiences to first be acquainted with Keaton’s precocious comic talent through early ‘two-reelers’ from the 1910s as well as his turbulent phase from the 1930s in the first two acts respectively. 

With a mix of in-depth research and generous servings of footage from a range of shorts, features and even adverts, The Great Buster feels like film history 101 in this subject which makes it a breeze to sit through even without prior knowledge. 

Bogdanovich’s own narration occasionally provides timely insights, contextualising Keaton’s legacy, alongside supplementary interviews (or more accurately, brief soundbites) from Quentin Tarantino, Bill Hader, Werner Herzog and more.

If you are, like me, lazy to open a book about Keaton, then this will be a good starting point.

Grade: A-

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