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Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life
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About This Book
From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis--a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern--and irresistible--today as they were when they beguiled audiences almost a century ago. It was James Agee who christened Buster Keaton "The Great Stone Face." Keaton's face, Agee wrote, ranked almost with Lincoln's as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was also irreducibly funny. Keaton was the only major comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his work and . . . he brought pure physical comedy to its greatest heights." Mel Brooks: "A lot of my daring came from Keaton." Martin Scorsese, influenced by Keaton's pictures in the making of Raging Bull: "The only person who had the right attitude about boxing in the movies for me," Scorsese said, "was Buster Keaton." Keaton's deadpan stare in a porkpie hat was as recognizable as Charlie Chaplin's tramp and Harold Lloyd's straw boater and spectacles, and, with W. C. Fields, the four were each considered a comedy king--but Keaton was, and still is, considered to be the greatest of them all. His iconic look and acrobatic brilliance obscured the fact that behind the camera Keaton was one of our most gifted filmmakers. Through nineteen short comedies and twelve magnificent features, he distinguished himself with such seminal works as Sherlock Jr., The Navigator, Steamboat Bill, Jr., The Cameraman, and his masterpiece, The General. Now James Curtis, admired biographer of Preston Sturges ("definitive"--Variety), W. C. Fields ("by far the fullest, fairest and most touching account we have yet had. Or are likely to have"--Richard Schickel, front page of The New York Times Book Review), and Spencer Tracy ("monumental; definitive"--Kirkus Reviews), gives us the richest, most comprehensive life to date of the legendary actor, stunt artist, screenwriter, director--master.
Reviews
"An immense year-by-year, sometimes week-by-week, account of Keaton as an artist and a man."
"In Curtis's telling, Keaton's life is a picaresque worthy of his comedies: he was once blackmailed by an ex-mistress who smashed up his office, and when his agent hired a man to keep him from drinking on set, Keaton paid the man to let him drink."
"Curtis is clearly an admirer of Keaton, but he doesn't view his subject through rose-colored glasses: he discusses and puts into context Keaton's battles with alcoholism and mental illness, his rocky marriage, and the devastating impact of poor reviews on some of Keaton's most personal projects."
"Curtis doesn't write inconsequential profiles, he writes definitive biographies ..."
"Curtis's book becomes."
"Meticulous research informs a brisk biography of an entertainment icon."
"Fans of Keaton, as well as classic cinema, will be delighted to read James Curtis's new book ..."
"Although ultimately celebrating Keaton, Curtis also explores, with admirable evenhandedness, the performer's private struggles with depression, adultery, and alcoholism."
"There are certain factual parts of the story that Stevens skips over which Curtis clarifies, like the way Keaton actually survived all those extreme stunts as a child ..."
"Curtis does not shy away from Keaton's rock-bottom 1930s, when he lost his creative autonomy at MGM, wriggled out of a loveless marriage to his first wife, Natalie Talmadge, and drank so heavily that he was, for a time, unemployable."
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