Buster Keaton - The Scarecrow (1920)

This the first screening on my film studies course at the ANU next week. Almost 100 years old and still it looks fresh. I think comedy may be the only genre that has travelled well over the intervening years. Modern Horror, the Western, Romantic Comedy retain many of the components, tropes and structural underpinnings of their predecessors but the original silent productions have dated - in technique, story-telling and dramatic effect - in ways that Comedy has not. Buster Keaton was a genius, of course. That much is obvious from the movie. But even allowing for his extraordinary talent it's interesting to watch the film simply to note how many of its elements remain with us today. It still makes me laugh and more than much of what passes for film and television comedy these days. But the early period of cinema looks so naive, so innocent reflected through the viewing prism of genres other than comedy, let's say, of The Exorcist, The Unforgiven or Trainwreck.