Rejected by the Confederate Army, a train conductor pursues his love and the Union army in his engine, The General.This isn't just a great action comedy for its time; it's a timeless, great action comedy. Some of the stunts Buster Keaton is able to do make Jackie Chan look like my grandmother. I marveled at how
precise his movements are as he slips in and out of the bridge of the engine and later balances himself on the front; that first train chase is truly a fabulously choreographed sequence.Going into the film and even for the most part during it, I was uneasy about the hero of the film fighting for the Confederacy. And the film portrays the Union as being a bunch of bumbling fools while the Confederate general is stern, heroic, and eventually deals justly with Johnny Gray, Keaton's character. Yes, you can say that in 1926 there was an audience who still referred to the Civil War as "the war of Northern aggression" (hell, there are still some people who say that in 2011), and yes, you can say that the side Gray fights for is tangential to the plot, but I maintain that we should expect visionary filmmakers to be visionaries, people who, despite their contemporaries, still see righteousness. Is it too much to hope that Keaton picked the North as his hero? I suppose so, just as it's too much to expect his valorization of the South not to interfere with my enjoyment of the film.Overall, if it were possible to pretend that Keaton picked the Jets and the Sharks or the Capulets and the Montagues as the film's rivals, then I would have thoroughly enjoyed this silent classic.
October 30, 2011
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