98. The General (1926)
Also at joint 95th on the 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll, Buster Keaton's ode to the railroads is a curious mix of comic caper and romance set amid the battlegrounds of the American Civil War.
Contains spoilers
We tend to think of poetry as something voiced; something characterised by the distinctive use of style, diction, and rhythm in relation to language. But then another definition is simply something that is comparable to poetry in its beauty. Either way, it describes a process in which the ordinary is made extraordinary, the familiar made strange. Which I suppose is what I’m trying to say about the inimitable work of Buster Keaton, and this film especially.
It makes sense when you consider that Keaton was one of those who created the language of cinema in the first place. A visionary who broke early ground when it came to unearthing the inventive possibilities of film. With no sound to worry about, the pictures of the silent era were built around image and movement, perfect for a performer like Keaton who understood both, as well as possessing the balletic skill, comic timing, visual acuity, and personal bravery, to make it all sing.
Keaton was born to it of course. The first child of two vaudeville entertainers, he quickly became the star of the show, tossed around the stage by his father, sometimes even into the audience, the ‘little boy who can’t be damaged’. The story goes that he even had a suitcase handle stitched into his stage clothes to make the pitching easier. Putting life and limb on the line in increasingly outlandish ways became Keaton’s trademark. That, and the deadpan countenance, perfect for the big screen – pure comedy, pure poetry, as inscrutable as the moon.
In the 1920s he produced a run of films that revolutionised the form. The General was perhaps the most audacious. Keaton’s attempt to bring history to life, to work on a scale beyond what was then thought possible. The scene with the train crashing through the burning bridge into the river below was the most expensive ever shot in the silent era. The picture was reputed to have some 3,000 people on the payroll and ended up costing $750,000. Its failure at the box office brought an end to Keaton’s independence and saw him tied to a deal at MGM which greatly limited his creative freedom. It was a step too far, an example of what happens when gifted auteurs are given whatever they want. That was the consensus in the wood-panelled, smoke-filled executive suites of Hollywood. Envelope pushing was all well and good, but the bottom line was what really mattered.
How lucky we are that Keaton was off the leash for as long as he was. We got all those films, including this one, under appreciated by contemporary audiences, but which many now regard as his masterpiece. And what a curious picture it is. A slapstick comedy / love story set in the American Civil War about a train chase. It almost certainly wouldn’t work if it wasn’t Keaton at the helm, if the physical escapades weren’t as memorable, if that striking fathomless face wasn’t front and centre.
Still, there it is. And it’s almost impossible to turn away from the screen, even though we might be thinking, ‘He’s on the wrong side, isn’t he?’ But we keep watching and so must contend with the idea that the film is guilty of perpetuating the myth of the Lost Cause. In this version of events, the war was never really about slavery but centred around more abstruse notions such as states’ rights, self-determination, and economic protectionism. The South couldn’t conceive of itself as wrongdoers, and so leant on a heroic counter narrative in the wake of defeat. The North had won anyway, and so indulged the idea for the sake of reunification and the future of the Union.
But if we’re not expected to believe Keaton bought this story himself, then we might have to consider the fact that elements of the American cinema-going public in the 1920s did, and that Keaton was guilty of giving them what they wanted. Take from that what you will. Or might there be a dramatic rationale? Given that the picture’s hero, Johnnie Gray, is meant to be an underdog, does it make sense that he’s on the losing side? After all, this is what underpins the film’s funniest line, delivered just after Johnnie has been rejected by the Confederate recruitment officer: ‘If you lose this war, don’t blame me.’ There’s a subtle inference in that line, something about not writing off the oddball, the outsider, the clown. Ultimately, Johnnie gets the girl and the honours, but neither come easy, and he’s still playing the fool until the very end, still looking at us with that great stone face of his, as if to say, ‘So, it’s like that, is it?’
And this might just be the key to Keaton’s art, the thing that situates him between pure vaudeville and the Theatre of the Absurd. Life is all pratfalls and suffering, but we must carry on regardless, amid the chaos and carnage. It’s no surprise that Samuel Beckett, that master of strange, discomforting poetry, made a beeline for Keaton years later. For there’s a strange, discomforting poetry at work throughout this film, like something’s off, but also on point, and so we’re forced to reckon with the possibility that the best poetry was never meant to be comfortable in the first place.