The Cameraman (Web Exclusive)
Reviewed by Karen Backstein

Produced by Buster Keaton; directed by Edward Sedgwick; story by Clyde Bruckman and Lew Lipton; titles by Joe Farnhan; photographed by Elgin Lessley and Reggie Lanning; edited by Hugh Wynn; settings by Fred Gabourie; starring Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin, and Harry Gribbon. Blu-ray, B&W, 69 min. 1928. A Criterion Collection Release.

Made in 1928, just as the industry was transitioning to sound, Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman marks Keaton’s shift from independent production to MGM contractee—a move Keaton later characterized as “the worst mistake of my life.” He went from having complete control of what could be called “artisanal” and improvisational filmmaking to a factory-like situation in which he became just another cog in the wheel. As history, and many of the Blu-ray’s extras point out, Keaton usually began work with the bare bones of an idea; as long as he knew the beginning and end of the story, he felt “the middle would take care of itself.” MGM, however, liked planned-out scripts and budgets that didn’t get busted by directors who suddenly came up with expensive ideas during the filming. Yet here, Buster managed to maintain his magic touch, creating a recognizably Keatonian work of art. The Cameraman shines with his comic vision and style despite MGM’s interference. He liked the general concept MGM had developed while ditching the originally laid-out details.

In many ways, the story of The Cameraman fits Keaton’s carefully crafted persona perfectly, though the narrative has rather more sentimentality than his usual (a problem that grew steadily worse at MGM). Although the film begins with a tribute to the daring newsreel cameramen who risked their lives, accompanied by a snippet of documentary footage of World War I, Buster himself is anything but heroic. He plays a hapless tintype photographer-turned-cameraman who must beat out a rival, Stagg (Harold Goodwin) to win the girl he loves, Sally (Marceline Day)—and impress his new boss. As a film about film, it allowed Buster to play with and comment on cinema and its possibilities from the director’s perspective (much as Sherlock, Jr. commented on movie spectatorship). From his very first two-reelers, Keaton’s work explored reality versus illusion, actual space versus theatrical space. In The Cameraman, he wittily brings this investigation to the newsreels his character shoots, contrasting the character’s uncut material with the manipulated finished product. His first attempt at using the movie camera yields almost experimental results, with footage randomly moving backward and forward (due to his inconsistent hand cranking) and eerily superimposed images: wrong for the character’s job, but wildly inventive visually. When he goes on location to shoot a Tong War in Chinatown, Keaton provides a humorous primer on capturing diverse perspectives on reality: a gunshot damages his tripod, creating a lower angle on the action; he climbs on to a scaffold, which then slowly careens forward to act as a crane; he moves to an upstairs apartment for a high view. As the gang members try to stop him, Buster deflects them in a way that changes the course of the war, so that he’s no longer just documenting but affecting the events he’s filming. And the final film-within-the-film that leads to the story’s happy ending also provides a sly statement on the art of documentary, as this tip-top footage (the best they ever saw!) was shot not by Buster the cameraman, but by an adorable capuchin monkey who becomes his little mascot.

Notably, The Cameraman is a film of space and place, thanks to subject matter that sets the character off in search of adventure, as well as the romantic aspect. Before decamping to the studio backlot, the film began shooting in real New York City locations and streets and has a sheen that fits in perfectly with MGM production values. It includes a number of set pieces that perfectly illustrate Keaton’s process riffing on a simple bare-bones concept. A cramped changing room at a swimming pool, which opens with a shot from up above, is a master class in comedy in which Buster and another man try unsuccessfully to stay out of one another’s way as they don their swimsuits; the topper on the gag comes when they both exit the room, Keaton wearing the other man’s oversize suit and his companion barely dressed in an embarrassingly tiny garment. On a grander scale, a tour de force performance at an empty Yankee Stadium allows Buster to play out his dreams of being a baseball star—pitching strikeouts, hitting a home run, and bowing to an invisible audience.

Over the years, The Cameraman was screened as a “trainer film” at MGM for newer directors as an example of a well-constructed comedy—so frequently, in fact, that certain sequences were permanently ruined, especially as the original negative was destroyed in an MGM vault fire. The Criterion Blu-ray features a 4K digital restoration (unfortunately with those three lost minutes still, as ever, missing), in the original aspect ratio. The transfer itself is very good, equal to the best I’ve seen, with a jaunty period-appropriate score and accompanying commentary by Glenn Mitchell that passes through the film’s production history, bits of trivia about the shooting locations, the framing of particular shots, and descriptions of what’s happening in various scenes—sometimes giving away the end of a gag or climactic moment before it happens, presumably because one will have already watched the movie prior to listening. Mitchell also discusses actress Marceline Day and her unusually strong role as the Keaton heroine, almost certainly one of MGM’s contributions, as well as some of the present-day politically incorrect sequences, like the Tong War. He also rightly points to Keaton’s skill as an actor, noting that the sobriquet “the Great Stone Face” never fit Keaton: Buster’s lack of smiles did not mean lack of expression. When Keaton loses his too-large bathing costume in the pool, for example, and needs to find a quick cover-up so he can exit the water, he spots a large woman in a two-piece suit. His sideways glance wickedly and humorously follows the lady as he swims off in pursuit, clearly revealing what’s on his mind as he finally escapes wearing her bloomers. Near the end, when Buster sees his rival walking off with the girl he loves, Keaton’s face drains of energy and his body sinks slowly into the sand; it’s a perfect image of emotional devastation. And memorably, in one of the film’s most reproduced shots, when he first meets Sally, they’re pressed tightly together by a crowd; Buster leans against her, his eyes shutting in ecstasy, as he seems to breathe in her presence. 

Along with a booklet containing an article by Imogen Sara Smith, “Man With a Movie Camera,” and a chapter from Keaton’s autobiography, numerous extras explore everything from the film’s production history to cinematic technology. So Funny It Hurts: Buster Keaton at MGM, a 2004 documentary made for TCM by the esteemed film historian Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird, contrasts Keaton’s working methods as an independent with the demands at MGM, and summarizes his time at the studio, including his later years as a gag creator, when he worked with such stars as Red Skelton and the Marx brothers. It includes an interview with the great man himself, who wistfully notes that “when we made pictures, we ate, slept, and dreamed them,” while everything at MGM had to be preplanned. Keaton was no longer allowed to do his own stunt work after The Cameraman, and also had to contend with what he called the switch to “funny dialogue.” Among the fun little bits are a recreation of what remains the missing footage from Cameraman, done for Skelton—a gag involving a boat christening and dunked cameraman. It’s both a knowledgeable and touching little documentary valuable for newcomers and still enjoyable for smart Keaton fans. Time Travelers, a “then and now” documentary by Daniel Raim made for Criterion, follows film historians John Bengston and Daniel Vance as they roam the streets of Los Angeles, pointing out the shooting locations Keaton used, including the elaborate public pool and a firehouse seen in The Cameraman; as a bonus, some of the locales were also used by Keaton’s fellow silent clowns Chaplin and Lloyd. An interview with James L. Neibaur, author of The Fall of Buster Keaton, covers some of the same territory as the other features: how MGM held him to a strict budget; how Keaton preferred a skeletal script that provided “just the bones” of the story; and how Chaplin and Lloyd warned him about accepting the MGM contract. Neibaur does provide more detail on the “educationals” that Keaton made post-MGM—comic shorts produced by Columbia Pictures—as well as his later TV appearances in such shows as The Twilight Zone and his rediscovery in later years. While each small documentary has its own perspective, there is also a fair amount of repetition.

The most distinctive extra feature, having little to do with Keaton specifically but taking off on Cameraman’s subject, is The Motion Picture Camera (1979), a thirty-three-minute plunge into the history of silent-era cinematography. Close-up images showcase these often beautiful hand-cranked vintage cameras, and let you peer through the viewer, watch the film spool through, and examine the mechanism. The machines include the Lumière Cinématographe as well as models from Pathé, the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and a host of others, whose inner workings are all described in detail by cinematographer Karl Malkames.     

Finally, the Blu-ray also includes Keaton’s next film for MGM, his final silent: Spite Marriage, also with commentary, this time by Bengston and Vance. Many of the subtle shifts the studio had already made to Buster’s character in The Cameraman—getting laughed at by all Sally’s more “manly” rivals and being called her “devoted canine”—have become more pronounced here, hastening his transition to “tragic clown.” (Keaton’s alter ego here is a pathetic stuffed dog with a painted teardrop.) Nonetheless, the film contains two incomparably brilliant sequences that are Keaton to the core. In the first, Elmer (Keaton) makes an impromptu on-stage appearance with the actress he adores (Trilby, played by an excellent Dorothy Sebastian), wreaking havoc on the treacly Southern melodrama she stars in. After Trilby marries Elmer to spite her cheating boyfriend, comes a second extended scene that became a standard part of Keaton’s theatrical repertoire in later years. Elmer attempts to wrangle the drunk and passed-out Trilby into bed, folding up her limp rag-doll body into a variety of awkward positions. By story’s end, the film reverses course, allowing Elmer to redeem himself and us to see an athletic Keaton successfully managing all the feats that had eluded him in the film’s first half. But the studio’s stricter control of the script, as well as its clamping down on Keaton’s stunt work, is sadly evident. (MGM also refused to make this a sound film, as Keaton wanted.) Contrasted with The Cameraman, it provides clear evidence of why Buster so regretted signing with MGM.  

Karen Backstein received her PhD from New York University, has taught in a number of New York area colleges, and has published articles on dance and film, Brazilian cinema, and cult TV.

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Cineaste, Vol. XLVI, No. 1