Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life Hardcover – February 15, 2022 by James Curtis

Description

Author: Curtis James

Color: Silver

Format: Deckle Edge

Package Dimensions: 33x235x1216

Number Of Pages: 832

Release Date: 15-02-2022

Details: Product Description
From acclaimed cultural and film historian James Curtis—a major biography, the first in more than two decades, of the legendary comedian and filmmaker who elevated physical comedy to the highest of arts and whose ingenious films remain as startling, innovative, modern—and irresistible—today as they were when they beguiled audiences almost a century ago.

“It is brilliant—I was totally absorbed, couldn’t stop reading it and was very sorry when it ended.”—Kevin Brownlow

It was James Agee who christened Buster Keaton “The Great Stone Face.” Keaton’s face, Agee wrote, “ranked almost with Lincoln’s as an early American archetype; it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful, yet it was also irreducibly funny. Keaton was the only major comedian who kept sentiment almost entirely out of his work and . . . he brought pure physical comedy to its greatest heights.”

Mel Brooks: “A lot of my daring came from Keaton.”

Martin Scorsese, influenced by Keaton’s pictures in the making of
Raging Bull: “The only person who had the right attitude about boxing in the movies for me,” Scorsese said, “was Buster Keaton.”

Keaton’s deadpan stare in a porkpie hat was as recognizable as Charlie Chaplin’s tramp and Harold Lloyd’s straw boater and spectacles, and, with W. C. Fields, the four were each considered a comedy king–but Keaton was, and still is, considered to be the greatest of them all.

His iconic look and acrobatic brilliance obscured the fact that behind the camera Keaton was one of our most gifted filmmakers. Through nineteen short comedies and twelve magnificent features, he distinguished himself with such seminal works as
Sherlock Jr.,
The Navigator,
Steamboat Bill, Jr.,
The Cameraman, and his masterpiece,
The General.

Now James Curtis, admired biographer of Preston Sturges (“definitive”—
Variety), W. C. Fields (“by far the fullest, fairest and most touching account we have yet had. Or are likely to have”—Richard Schickel, front page of
The New York Times Book Review), and Spencer Tracy (“monumental; definitive”—
Kirkus Reviews), gives us the richest, most comprehensive life to date of the legendary actor, stunt artist, screenwriter, director—
master.
Review
“It is brilliant—I was totally absorbed, couldn’t stop reading it and was very sorry when it ended.”—Kevin Brownlow

“Vibrant . . . in Curtis’s telling, Keaton’s life is a picaresque worthy of his comedies . . . evocative, entertaining, and laced with lyrical detail. This is an engrossing portrait of a Hollywood legend.”—
Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Film historian and biographer Curtis draws on abundant archival sources as well as interviews, memoirs, and previous biographies to create a comprehensive, warmly sympathetic life of iconic entertainer Joseph Frank “Buster” Keaton . . . lively . . . authoritative . . . Meticulous research informs a brisk biography of an entertainment icon.”—
Kirkus (starred)
About the Author
JAMES CURTIS is the author of
William Cameron Menzies: The Shape of Films to Come,
Spencer Tracy: A Biography, and
W. C. Fields: A Biography (winner of the 2004 Theatre Library Association Award, Special Jury Prize), among others.
He lives in Brea, California.