The Great Buster (2018)

THE GREAT BUSTER  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich does an interesting thing structurally in this documentary about Buster Keaton. After tracking Keaton's life from his childhood in vaudeville through his apprenticeship with Fatty Arbuckle and the classic two-reelers he made in the early 1920s, Bogdanovich skips ahead to 1928 and Keaton's ill-fated decision to sign with MGM. In just three or four years there, Keaton's career collapsed, and from then on he took work where he could find it, in supporting roles, writing gags for other comics, low-budget shorts, and eventually television commercials. Keaton died in 1966, a year after his triumphant reception at the Venice Film Festival, at which point Bogdanovich slips back to the five or six years in the 1920s when he did his most famous work. Which ends the movie not just on a high note, but ten of them: "Sherlock Jr.", 'The Navigator", "The General" and all the rest. The clips are wonderful, and Bogdanovich leaves you wanting much more. What makes Keaton timeless is that his comedy transcends language, physical gags so brilliantly conceived and executed that they remain astonishing, and funny, not just a hundred years after he created them, but over and over again. There was nobody like Buster Keaton.