Camera Man: Buster Keaton

December 4–21, 2022

Keaton’s ingenious gags and stunts in his silent two-reelers and features confirm his timeless appeal as a commentator on the human condition who was drawn to the dreamlike and the all-too-real. 

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  • Sherlock Jr.

  • Our Hospitality

  • Good Night, Nurse!

  • The General

  • The Cameraman

  • Notfilm

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Past Films

  • Sherlock Jr.

    Buster Keaton
    United States, 1924
    Sunday, December 4 5 PM
    Wayne Barker on Piano

    Sherlock Jr. will be Keaton’s most enduring commentary on the art of cinema. Buster plays a projectionist who dreams his way onto the screen and into a movie in which he resolves the conflicts of his own life. With The Frozen North and The Playhouse.

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  • Our Hospitality

    Jack Blystone, Buster Keaton
    United States, 1923
    Friday, December 9 7 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    Buster is heir to an Appalachian estate and, along with it, a Hatfield-McCoy-type feud. Our Hospitality, an American masterpiece, at once lyric and frenetic, is a sly satire. With The High Sign.

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  • The General

    Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton
    United States, 1927
    Sunday, December 11 5 PM
    Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    Keaton plays a Civil War–era railroad engineer in love with both his girl and his train in this masterpiece of silent comedy. With The Goat.

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  • Keaton in Context: Silent Comedies by and with Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Bert Williams

    Wednesday, December 14 7 PM
    Introduced by Dana Stevens; Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    A selection of silent film comedy gems placing Keaton in context with contemporary innovators Roscoe Arbuckle, Mabel Normand, and Bert Williams, who appear behind and in front of the camera with weird and wonderful results.

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  • The Cameraman

    Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton
    United States, 1928
    Friday, December 16 7 PM
    Introduced by Dana Stevens; Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    In his most self-reflexive film, Keaton plays a New York City newsreel cameraman whose love life is as jumbled as the mixed-up footage he shoots. With Cops.

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  • Family Matinee: Buster Keaton’s Marvelous Houses

    Sunday, December 18 3 PM
    Introduced by Dana Stevens

    One Week, The Scarecrow, and The Electric House, three two-reelers for all ages, reveal Keaton’s comic ingenuity through three houses as only he can imagine them.

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  • Steamboat Bill, Jr.

    Charles F. Reisner
    United States, 1927
    Sunday, December 18 5 PM
    Introduced by Dana Stevens with book signing to follow the screening; Judith Rosenberg on Piano

    Set on the Mississippi River, Steamboat Bill, Jr. seems to have a direct line to Keaton’s youth and soul in the tale of a sensitive lad trying to figure out the mettle of manhood in his overbearing dad. With The Boat.

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  • Notfilm

    Ross Lipman
    United States, 2015
    Wednesday, December 21 7 PM

    Lipman’s fascinating kino-essay examining a 1965 collaboration between Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton, “testifies to an almost inexhaustible fascination with the pleasures and paradoxes of cinema” (New York Times). With the original Film by Samuel Beckett.

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