Last night the stars last night the wind
Due to the film's inherently documentary and commercial nature, from the day of its birth it was destined to be a greedy zotoposo, trying to bring a wide variety of performance forms to the screen
At the beginning of the 20th century, the media of film was still a new thing, and many immigrants, especially Jews, because of the difficulty of finding jobs, began to screen movies. Because the ticket at that time was a nickel coin (5 cents) ticket, the cinema along the street where these movies were screened was called a nickel cinema.
As early as 1912, there were producers who saw the huge business opportunity of "Three Keatons" and tried to invite the Keatons to shoot a movie. But Father Joe believes their family won't perform on a sheet for a five-cent nickel. Because the theater at that time was still the so-called "nickel theater". But what Joe did not expect was that his son Buster had a lifelong fate with the "sheets" screen he despised.
With the rapid development of the film industry, American films soon came out of the era of "nickel theaters". New York built a two-storey, luxuriously decorated Mark Strand Cinema, which can accommodate more than 3,000 spectators at the same time. This not only marks the infinite energy of the development of the film, but also reflects the audience's great enthusiasm for the film. In 1915, Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation" caused strong repercussions in society. Buster Keaton, who was still a stage actor at this time, repeatedly observed this epoch-making great film, and he was deeply impressed by the film's unique expressiveness and development space.
1917 "Oh, Doctor"
In early 1917, the young Buster Keaton came to New York to perform alone due to discord with his parents. A head-to-head encounter changed his later career: he met his former friend , Rox Abaril , who was filming his first film , The Young Butcher , by Joseph Schenck. Invited to visit the set, Keaton was quickly drawn to the new fantasy medium of film. At first he tried to make a few cameo appearances in the film, and the extremely talented Keaton played it handily. After learning about the filming process, he decided that this magical world could bring him something he couldn't get in stage performances. He resolutely destroyed the performance contract he had just signed, and bid farewell to the stage and cast it into the world. Although as a newcomer, he was only paid a meager salary of $40 a week, and his salary for stage performances had reached $250 at that time.
Starting as an assistant director and actor in Abacol, he helped Abacol unearth the comedic effects of improvisation in his performances. Soon, Joseph Schenck discovered Keaton's extraordinary comedic genius and acting talent. Keaton's performance in front of the camera is flexible and accurate, and his expression is dignified and stable, which is in stark contrast to the fancy performances of his contemporaries. His unique comedy performance also aroused the opinion of David Robinson, a critic of the evidence circle at the time, that Keaton's unsmiling face resembled the man in the painting of the French director Jean Cocteau, which had an elegant beauty and made the comedy film have a special charm. Keaton was quickly reused and began to stand out in comedy. For 14 months, from early 1917 to 1918, Keaton collaborated with Abakol on 12 short films, becoming Schenck's most capable man.
Schenck was also praised by the film industry and critics for his successful use of Keaton, and was called the "most intelligent Bole" in the film industry. Joseph. Schenck and Keaton gradually became friends, and although Schenck was only eight years older than Keaton, they were in love with each other. Keaton saw in Schenck the courage and wisdom, as well as the quality and business acumen, that the unusually shy character of the strong entrepreneur Keaton was far removed from the conditions required by a successful comedian. He was a lonely man at heart, not good at words, and often mixed with extreme shyness and annoying arrogance when dealing with people. Keaton, like his father, is not good at managing money, but he has a longer-term vision than his father. When he saw rivals Chaplin and Lloyd adept at business, he knew he needed someone as reliable as Schenck to help him.
Later, he married the Schenck family successfully, and his first wife, Schenck's sister-in-law Natalie, became his agent. Schenck is well aware of Keaton's performance style and intentions, as well as the potential commercial interests behind his performances, so for Keaton's films, Schenck always spares no effort to give him the greatest financial freedom and creative space. Schenck had generously allowed Keaton to destroy six cars in a row, which was an almost crazy waste for the film industry at the time. Keaton's films were the most widely received, and audiences loved every little trick Keaton played with the camera. But Keaton wasn't satisfied with that, and he tried to find a different path on the screen, gradually performing his own stunts.
In June 1918, Keaton enlisted in the army and served in France for seven months. In distant France, he experienced a rainy and muddy life. Sleeping on the ventilated floor all day caused him to suffer from ear disease, which eventually damaged his hearing. After demobilization the following year, Keaton began his work with fat man Abacole again. Soon after, Joseph. Schenck bought Chaplin's old studio, renamed it Keaton Studios, and asked Keaton to make two films a year for Mitter Studios. By this time, Kipa's weekly salary had reached $2,000 and later rose to $2,500, plus a 25 percent dividend per film.
Keaton's first feature film for MitterShares was Fool (1920), in which he played Porty, who represented the characters he had in most of his 1920s films: spoiled, unworldly, slow-paced, enthusiastic but always full of children. Such as the unlucky groom in "A Week" (1920), the idle guy in "Love Nest" (1923), Roro in "The Sea Of Things" (1924), Bart Qin in "Meet Butler", the world's least unlucky egg in "Misfortune" (1921), and so on. "A Week" tells the story of a newlywed couple assembling their new home with great interest. At the one-way construction site department nong 4 two by the work out of the face by the mouthwoman enthusiastically assembled their new house. After a flurry, the house turns into a ridiculous monster from another planet. The door opened on the second floor, the chimney was mounted above the bathroom, and the new house was wobbly like a carousel during the storm because the homestead was not chosen correctly. The couple decided to drag the house to town, but halfway through, the house was stuck on the tracks. Just as they were secretly glad they had dodged the roaring train, another oncoming train turned the house into a pile of rubble. It was the most sensational film of the year, and critics thought it "produced laughter that could be heard all over the world." Keaton's genius creativity and surrealist ideas inspired louis abacoll, John, buñuel and Garcia, who loved film in the early days of Europe. The interests of Rocca and Beckett, among others, have since been filmed in Boats (1921), Pale Faces (1922), The Policeman (1922), Daydreams (1922), and My Wife's Relatives (1922). Although these films have always been high at the box office, their strong personal consciousness and realistic tragic color have attracted criticism from critics for their films. Joseph Schenck, as always, supported Keaton in making his own films.
Ki in Young Sherlock Holmes
In 1923, Keaton made feature films such as "Three Times", "Our Hospitality", and "Young Sherlock Holmes", but they failed to create a box office miracle like "One Week". It wasn't until the 1924 filming of The Voyager that Keaton regained his strength and achieved unprecedented success again, and his name finally appeared on the list of A-list actors in the American film industry.
It is also accidental that the reason for the filming of "The Voyager" was that Keaton heard that the ocean-going ship "Barford" was about to be demolished, so he took the opportunity to buy it as the main prop at great expense, and began to write the script. The story is about a pampered and clumsy boy, Luo Luo, who one day finds himself trapped on an abandoned steamship that is wandering aimlessly across the Atlantic Ocean, with only him and his old lover on board. Although the two knew each other's boat and were trying to find each other, all kinds of yin and yang mistakes always caused the pair of people who were struggling to find each other at a critical moment. And when the exhausted two finally plan to give up, a miracle happens, and a broken plank sends the girl to Luo Luo's side. So Rollo asked the girl the question he had asked in San Francisco: "Will you marry me?" Abandoning juggling scenes, this theme of search seems strikingly similar to Wong Kar-wai-esque postmodern cinema today. At this moment, Keaton once again gave the audience a crisp "of course not" to the audience to drink a girl, which directly shattered the audience's psychological expectations, resulting in a surprising comedic effect.
After the release of the film, it was crowded and screened for two consecutive weeks, and the box office received the leading position at that time. This great success undoubtedly gave Schenck a reassuring pill. Keaton also proved his strength and ability at the box office: as long as he was given enough creative space, he could make a successful film on his own path.