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kaasknot · 2 years

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Please take this as an offense but I am absolutely fascinated by your current obsession with Buster Keaton and went back through your account to figure out what rabbit hole led to this but couldn't figure it out. If you're okay with sharing can you tell me the rabbit hole that led to this?

OFFENS TAKEN no but okay it's really kind of dumb. this past january someone reblogged a buster keaton post, i assume a stunts gifset because those get numbers, and i hit up his tag on a whim to see what was what.

now, at the time i was writing an OC character for star wars. and while i knew just about everything else important about this character, i didn't have a clear idea of what he looked like. but i was scrolling through pics of this old-timey comedian and it slowly dawned on me: my character looks kind of like buster keaton. official facecast made.

and honestly, that's why i came back to the tag a second time. if it hadn't been for that association, i probably would have forgotten about buster and moved on. but, once a month or so i'd jump back in the buster keaton tag, refresh my memory on my OC's face situation, and then jump back out.

till eventually i guess it hit critical mass, and all of a sudden in late may i'm hitting up the buster tag… because i'm thirsty for buster. i pretty clearly remember a series of gifsets around The General that made me go "…damn, son."

gonna wax rhapsodic here for a bit. let's get the most obvious point out of the way: buster keaton is pretty. he's got cheekbones and big eyes and a profile to die for. and he's ripped, because he's a goddamn acrobat. like, his vastus medialis continually makes me go "that can't be real." also, he's a short king. a small little guy. 5'5", and perfectly willing to make jokes about it—and that kind of security is hotter than the surface of the sun.

he's also ridiculously funny. he made his career on that, you'd kind of hope he would be; but specifically it's funny to me. his sense of humor matches mine perfectly: wry, ironic, a touch of the absurd/surrealistic, leaning to black humor, and with minimal use of sticky substances or stupidity. i have so much trouble with modern comedy because 90% of the time it's just so dumb. buster keaton movies are not dumb. his hero is a clever little shithead—if somewhat naive and literal-minded—with abysmal luck, who gets into awkward situations and does his clever best to get himself back out. i vibe with it.

and then obvs his stunts. the more of his movies i watch the more i mutter "how did he not die?" and "is he made of rubber bands and cotton balls??" his physicality is so satisfying to watch, and not just in a prurient way (tho i am definitely also watching in a prurient way). this is a man with supreme control over his body and a thorough understanding of physical comedy. he was pulling out pratfalls well into his 60s, yo.

and the more of his movies i watch (especially in comparison to roscoe arbuckle's movies), the more i appreciate how good of a filmmaker he was. he let the story do the talking, rather than clutter up the screen with intertitles. his precise use of camera angles, the astonishingly good cinematography, the use of the camera itself to sell a gag (i.e. the dream sequence in Sherlock, Jr.). i saw a letterboxd review call The General "mad max fury railroad" and i haven't been able to get that out of my head, because y e a h, his editing was as precise as margaret sixel's. i watched "One Week" after watching all of the arbuckle shorts he was in, and lemme tell you, my third eye was blown wide open. "oh," i said to myself. "i get why people call him a genius."

and from a frothing fangirl perspective, he has built in artificial scarcity. his smile is rare, his voice is rare, shirtless scenes are rare. (in reality, none of these things are particularly hard to find in his films, but like i say to everyone who sits still long enough for me to yammer at them, their perceived scarcity makes them so much more compelling. when you hear him say "pass" in Sunset Boulevard you quiver like you're catching sight of ankles in the 1800s). it encourages thirsting.

the more i learn about him the more obsessed i get.

#askbox #psychicshr00m #buster keaton #thank u for letting me ramble about my blorbo #no i don't know if/when/how i'll ever write my OC again

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