Man With A Movie List

Director: Buster Keaton Year: 1924 Run time: 45 min Source: Kanopy When Buster Keaton started working in the film industry in 1917, he apparently had reservations about this new art form.  By 1924, he had changed his mind enough to direct film's first, and possibly its best, love letter to itself.  Sherlock, Jr. stars Keaton as a wannabe detective in the mold of Holmes, but Sherlock, Jr. is really all about life imitating cinema. The greatest scene - probably among the top ten special effects of all time - is the moment when Keaton's character, dreaming, steps onto the screen itself from the audience's position, where he finds himself madly transported between locales as the scenes change.  The genius of Keaton's stunts is that he makes it look simple, when really each shot required using surveying equipment to get his position exactly right. There are plenty of other great stunts here, but this is the first Keaton movie on the list where he has an interesting ...

Director: René Clair Year: 1924 Run-time: 20 min Source: Youtube The director René Clair of the short experimental film Entr'acte  would have a long and varied career, although I'm not sure whether he will show up again on the list.  To me, this one is interesting because of the other personalities involved.  Erik Satie, famous as a young man for his  Gymnopedies,  not only composed the eclectic music, but has a cameo.  The film premiered between the acts (thus the name) of one of his ballets, one year before he died.  Marcel Duchamp also participated, and it's fascinating to think of these two men being part of the same endeavour. Certainly the film reflects a Dadaist spirit, and remind us that the movement had plenty of humor to it which can sometimes fail to come across in the art gallery.  In a strange way, I was reminded the most of Monty Python while watching some of the more absurd scenes.  Despite the costumes and p...