The Cameraman Musical Accompaniment by Timothy Brock Conducting Students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
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THE CAMERAMAN MUSICAL ACCOMPANIMENT BY TIMOTHY BROCK CONDUCTING STUDENTS FROM THE SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC DIRECTED BY EDWARD SEDGWICK, USA, 1928 CAST Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin, Sidney Bracey, Harry Gribbon, Edward Brophy, and Vernon Dent PRODUCTION Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer PRINT SOURCE Warner Bros. ou’d never know it, but The Cameraman was Cameraman caps a small wedge of cinematic legacy Ya bitch of a movie to make, being the first we should always be thankful for: in a breathtaking Buster Keaton made under his new contract at five-year period (1923–1928, following his two-reeler MGM, and the first with which he had to suffer the apprentice stint with Fatty Arbuckle and Al St. John, dumb know-nothing interference of a now-forgotten and his first handful of solo shorts), Keaton master- middleman producer (Lawrence Weingarten). MGM’s minded eleven elaborate features and a dozen or so head man, Irving Thalberg, liked it well enough, but shorts, each of them still a gift to us in any time the political structure of MGM, plus the coming of of great need. Maybe we could look at it that way: sound, sounded the death knell right at Keaton’s Buster was sacrificed, his career as an auteur peak. He survived the ensuing decades by making essentially over by the time he was thirty-three, B-movies, shorts produced by an industrial film destined to play out the remainder of his decades company, taking cameo bits and even a gig as a in Hollywood as a grumpy ghost of the Way It Once gag writer, in 1950, for the Red Skelton redo of The Was, for the simple sake of a clutch of the most Cameraman, Watch the Birdie. daring and graceful silent comedies ever made. All of which can, if we let it, lend The Cameraman Keatonians will not blink at the hyperbole. The a sense of sadness and apprehension—how we all Cameraman may not be a tour de force in the man- might wish for an ideal alternate cinema history, ner of Sherlock Jr. or The General, but take care to where Keaton had not reaped the mediocre box appreciate its variegated charms and achievements, office that was often his fate, had not gone to MGM from the proto-Jackie Chan stunts clambering (“the biggest mistake of my career,” he later said), aboard the outside of moving vehicles, to the subtle was not sacrificed to the caprices of talkies (which, (and, for Keaton, rare) explorations of contemporary however, might’ve been inevitable, given Keaton’s social-sexual mores. Oddly, the metafictional possi- unique performative register), and did in fact thrive bilities of the film’s primary setup—breaking into the for decades, perhaps in the way Chaplin did, with nascent dog-eat-dog world of newsreel photography, infrequent but beloved passion projects that ferried that is, struggling to turn life into images in a man- his silent-clown persona into the new era. ner that, in 1928, was newer to earthlings than the iPod—are only hesitantly explored. Ah, well. The nimbus of fate that surrounds Keaton, making him a figure that Billy Wilder absolutely had Keaton’s archetypal nebbish-hero is first seen as an to include in the cemetery lineup of Sunset Boulevard, itinerant tintype photog, hawking the old novelty on is inseparable from the dazzling inventiveness and the sidewalk. That’s soon subsumed with a crowd, precise heroism of his best films, like the wistful and battling movie cameramen, rubbernecking over disappointments of adulthood that give the mem- a visiting celebrity, who happened to be, in news ories of youth their golden hue. In any event, The footage, Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim 6 7 Harry Gribbon and Buster Keaton the English Channel. His eager transformation into in fact happen, without cuts, and so the movie walks In the center of it all, there’s Buster, implacable and involvement. The yokel of the story didn’t under- a newsreel-man, in order to win the attention of the a fine and wiggly line between irony and literalism, modest and therefore heroic. Here’s another way to stand, in the end, that the feelings of alarm and news firm’s secretary, never allows for the represen- allowing for racy detours (being accidentally naked in think of Keaton’s achievement, amid the noise and empathy the play mustered were for him and him tational slippage that bloomed in Sherlock Jr. where a public pool filled with women), familiarly Keaton- crazed showmanship and slovenly spectacle that is alone, and they were the reason for him to be there. movies, dreams, and fantasies took turns masquer- esque set pieces (the repurposed crane shot up and and was Hollywood: as a cinematic expression of We can care about Desdemona. But we will never ading as each other. Here, “reality” remains real as down multiple staircases as Keaton bolts up and shibui, the traditional Japanese principle of restraint be able to save her. it’s captured on film, in the spirit of the medium’s down), and even a springtime idyll, as Buster finds and astringency. It’s an aesthetic idea most often first years—despite the hilarious fact that Keaton’s himself alone in an empty ballpark and panto- indexed in discussions of the filmic form of Ozu (and So it is with Keaton, whose searching visage is one scrambling go-getter never focuses or frames or mimes an entire home-run hit-and-dash for his own therefore Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Hou Hsiao- of movies’ deepest invitations into their capacity for even aims his lumbering tripod-borne camera, acting amusement, pretend-playing like the kid he always hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, and other so-called minimal- human involvement. Because he asks so much, we as a simulacra of dumb, haphazard human witness. seemed to still be in some way. (This was shot, like ists), but it can also be seen as a matter of voice (in tip forward, to try to occupy his hope and despair. other key scenes, in New York, at Yankee Stadium.) fiction, you could point to Hemingway’s much-unsaid, He is our better angel. Or, the film’s comically slipshod regard for cine- If you think about it, Keaton’s art was always close to leaning-out prose style as well), and, on film, a matter — Michael Atkinson matographic technology could be seen as Keaton’s what movies are in their most basic molecular spirit, of presence, acting, reacting, personality. Keaton’s ironic swipe at the mainstream belief that seeing is in making believe, which is why we admire him even as famous on-screen affect resonates still because of fact believing, and that reality could ever be captured we laugh, just as we’d be wowed in mid-play by our how it requires us to watch actively, leaning in, em- at all. Maybe, but Keaton’s comedy was always bravest and nimblest childhood friend doing with a pathizing with his hapless, dogged, guileless heroes contingent on us seeing what remarkable thing did blank face what we’d never dare. because they do not in fact demand our attention or comradeship. Famously, there is no moment of nod- The Cameraman has a capacious- ding in our direction; rather, when Keaton looks into ness to it, and a casual lack of the camera, he’s only gazing dumbfounded out into urgency, that Keaton’s other films the abyss. He is alone, and self-reliant, and tireless. don’t—virtually anything, cine- We cannot help him. matographically-associated or not, could find its way into its narrative, Which is the essence of dramatic entertainment SAN FRANCISCO CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC even the last act’s explosion of as a form—ideally leaving us sequestered in our THE MUSICIANS: Yellow Menace racism, with our black-box theater, separate and watchful. The Maria Van Der Sloot (Violin I) hero (now saddled, or blessed, distance that’s erased by a single Chaplinesque wink Chuxuejie Zhang (Violin I) with an organ grinder’s monkey is crucial. Writing in 1969, theorist Stanley Cavell Alyssa Wright (Violin II) who handles some of the cam- retells an old anecdote in which a Southern yokel Yu Gong (Violin II) erawork) suddenly in Chinatown, instinctively jumps onto the stage during a perfor- Carly Scena (Viola) in the middle of an outrageous mance of Othello in order to save Desdemona from Dimitrios Floor (Viola) depiction of a Tong war. However the homicidal rage of a black man. Cavell doesn’t Pei-Jen Tseng (Cello) inappropriate, it’s a frantic action even touch on the scenario’s inherent racism. He Rocio Lopez Sanchez (Cello) set-piece that blows the top of the instead looks at the man’s reaction as the antithesis Hsin Jung (Bass) movie’s head off, as machine guns of what it means to partake of and participate in David Light (Flute and piccolo) are matter-of-factly planted all over dramatic art. The yokel in question first doesn’t Jasper Igusa (Oboe) Mott Street (or the studio equiva- understand the rules—the difference between re- Emily Ji (Clarinet and bass clarinet) lent) and sheer crossfire mayhem ality and pretend—and second doesn’t understand Shelby Capozzoli (Bassoon) ensues, giving Keaton’s protagonist that there is no reason to act or interfere, because Avery Roth-Hawthorne (Horn) the opportunity of a scoop, even there is absolutely nothing a spectator can do to Mika Nakamura (Percussion) as his equipment is torn to bits by help either Desdemona or Othello. It is precisely Bryce Leafman (Percussion) gunfire.