Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood

Feb 7, 2016

0h 52m

★ 7.9

Overview

In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Quark Productions

ARTE

Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Self

Buster Keaton

The Dangers of the Fly is an educational film made by Ernesto Gunche and Eduardo Martínez de la Pera, also responsible for Gaucho Nobility (1915), the biggest blockbuster of Argentinean silent cinema. De la Pera was a talented photographer, always willing to try new gadgets and techniques. This film experiments with microphotography in the style of Jean Comandon's films for Pathé and it is part of a series which included a film about mosquitoes and paludism and another one about cancer, which are considered lost. Flies were a popular subject of silent films and there are more than a dozen titles featuring them in the teens and early twenties.

5.5

Days of Thrills and Laughter

Mar 21, 1961

An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.

4.1

Men Boxing

Apr 30, 1891

Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.

6.0

El circo

Dec 31, 1950

Madrid, Spain, 1949. The Circo Americano arrives in the city. While the big top is pitched in a vacant lot, the troupe parades through the grand avenues: the band, a witty impersonator, the Balodys, acrobats, jugglers, acrobatic skaters, clowns and… Buffallo Bill.

No Image Available

7.0

The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk

Sep 2, 2007

Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.

0.0

Watch the Tempo

Mar 30, 2018

On 18th of December 2017, the Filarmonica Teatro Regio Torino, directed by Timothy Brock, presented "The Gold Rush" by Charles Chaplin, with live performance of the soundtrack. But let's go back a few days: this short film takes us in the backstage of the concert!

4.0

Ventanas

Dec 1, 2015

No overview available.

No Image Available

3.0

R. F. Outcault Making a Sketch of Buster and Tige

Mar 12, 1904

Buster Brown creater R.F. Outcault sketches his creation. Part of the Buster Brown series for Edison film studio.

6.7

Admiral Cigarette

Aug 1, 1897

Late 1800s cigarette advertisement produced by Thomas Edison Manufacturing.

7.5

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

Sep 23, 1927

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.

7.1

Nanook of the North

Jun 11, 1922

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

5.5

One Second in Montreal

Sep 25, 1969

A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.

5.9

Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge

Oct 15, 1888

A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.

No Image Available

0.0

The Diver

Mar 15, 1911

A fascinating pictorial document: On an old, cluttered work ship, a man is helped on with a bulky, old fashioned diving suit. It's a complicated process, many layers and sections are carefully applied. He goes over the side. Some men row out to what looks like a wrecked barge and set dynamite. Then the diver returns and now laughs and acknowledges the camera. The other men, now safely away, blow up the barge.

5.2

The Return of the Victorious Serbian Army

Nov 18, 1913

At the beginning of Sumadijska street in the vicinity of Slavija Square on the 11th August 1913, the Serbian victorious army from the Second Balkan War led by the Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic was given a huge welcome by the highest military and political authorities of Serbia and Belgrade, representatives of civil organizations and national institutions, as well as several tens of thousands of people from Belgrade, Serbia and Vojvodina.

6.4

Passage of Venus

Dec 9, 1874

Photo sequence of the rare transit of Venus over the face of the Sun, one of the first chronophotographic sequences. In 1873, P.J.C. Janssen, or Pierre Jules César Janssen, invented the Photographic Revolver, which captured a series of images in a row. The device, automatic, produced images in a row without human intervention, being used to serve as photographic evidence of the passage of Venus before the Sun, in 1874.

6.9

À propos de Nice

May 28, 1930

What starts off as a conventional travelogue turns into a satirical portrait of the town of Nice on the French Côte d'Azur, especially its wealthy inhabitants.

No Image Available

0.0

Kings of Comedy: Masters of the Silent Screen

Dec 31, 2007

A documentary about some of the comedians of the silent era featuring clips from their films and biographical information.

Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

Buster Keaton: The Genius Destroyed by Hollywood Trailers