Has there been a good study done of Buster Keaton's relationship to architecture? He used it so well.
Another, ht to @TheGreatDamfino & @PhinHarper.
One Week is the best architecture related Keaton film. Keaton and his new wife build their own home, which turns out a bit unintentionally Libeskind and then rotates and gyrates before they move it to another site completely.
Turns out @owenhatherley has written on this in The Chaplin Machine, another book I own somewhere and in a growing "to-read" pile. Here is an extract on @PlutoPress re Buster Keaton and One Week:
plutobooks.com/blog/comic-ant…
plutobooks.com/blog/comic-ant…
A friend of mine, Richard Martin, wrote a book on David Lynch and architecture, in which he mentions Keaton:
The incredible opening sequence from The Scarecrow features a fully-automated-pocket-living-micro-apartment which developers now can only dream of.
Another eg from The Scarecrow:
I love Keaton's The General, and remember that the bridge scene is the most expensive silent movie sequence made. The collapsed bridge & train were left in situ and were a huge tourist attraction for years after the film was released.
I guess he got someone else to build his own house in Beverley Hills, because it seems not to have collapsed...
Genius.
From My Wife's Relations.
He meant to make the jump, but missed. So decided to keep the scene in the film then build the fall to the ground elements in after.
Using the architectural infrastructure of LA.
This scene from My Wife's Relations wasn't used in the final film, and was lost until a couple of years ago.
It's also bloody brilliant.
It's also bloody brilliant.
Architecture as stunt artist, from Steamboat Bill
from the same film.
Wind+building=
From the wonderful 1920 short Neighbors
Keaton's LA of 1920 was going down as well as up.
Keaton's reading of the flat architectural facade was genius.
more infrastructure collapsing.
I am going to end this here, because I could keep descending and descending through more of the Keaton archive wormhole.
But I'd be interested in any links, observations, ideas, other examples of how Buster Keaton played with architecture and built form.
But I'd be interested in any links, observations, ideas, other examples of how Buster Keaton played with architecture and built form.
(addendum: for some reason the gif i tried for ages to make of the unused/lost/refound scene from My Wife's Relations didn't work up there in the thread. So here it is as a video)
See here:
