At the center of the American film comedy—perhaps of American film itself—is The Chase. And while it may be predictable, grow tiresome, and fail to satisfy the need for a “proper” dénouement, The Chase continues, as it were, if only because of the three-dimensional possibilities it contains: length, width and depth, the two-dimensional screen all but exploded to fit it. One almost has to read Edwin Abbott’s
Flatland to appreciate the cheating geometry of The Chase.
But what has Keaton done in
The General? His train Chase ignores the rules: Trains are bound by their tracks, and must doggedly follow their finite line segments—obedient points that they are—from left to right, right to left. Depth is achieved only along a diagonal—the line segment radiating away from the camera—and even the curve of the tracks is a mere technicality. Forget height.
And this is the Geometer's pleasure of
The General. Keaton begins with the limits he has set for himself—and then places human figures on the line segment, springing into the air, leaping from train to train, clambering along his Flatland like monkeys—and more: He forces his trains to cross and curve, suddenly snakes, the dimensions magically restored. —And, as usual, this new reality, explosive, massive as—well, a train—embraces a single undisturbed figure: Keaton himself, the stable little point, stoically accepting heights and depths—and any lengths to which the plot will go to plunk him in his sweetheart’s arms.
Yes, the movie’s based on a true story; but Keaton pares down the “truth” to fit the experiment and to satisfy his urge to remain the Mover Unmoved. The Chase will never be the same.
At the center of the American film comedy—perhaps of American film itself—is The Chase. And while it may be predictable, grow tiresome, and fail to satisfy the need for a “proper” dénouement, The Chase continues, as it were, if only because of the three-dimensional possibilities it contains: length, width and depth, the two-dimensional screen all but exploded to fit it. One almost has to read Edwin Abbott’s Flatland to appreciate the cheating geometry of The Chase.
But what has Keaton done in The General? His train Chase ignores the rules: Trains are bound by their tracks, and must doggedly follow their finite line segments—obedient points that they are—from left to right, right to left. Depth is achieved only along a diagonal—the line segment radiating away from the camera—and even the curve of the tracks is a mere technicality. Forget height.
And this is the Geometer's pleasure of The General. Keaton begins with the limits he has set for himself—and then places human figures on the line segment, springing into the air, leaping from train to train, clambering along his Flatland like monkeys—and more: He forces his trains to cross and curve, suddenly snakes, the dimensions magically restored. —And, as usual, this new reality, explosive, massive as—well, a train—embraces a single undisturbed figure: Keaton himself, the stable little point, stoically accepting heights and depths—and any lengths to which the plot will go to plunk him in his sweetheart’s arms.
Yes, the movie’s based on a true story; but Keaton pares down the “truth” to fit the experiment and to satisfy his urge to remain the Mover Unmoved. The Chase will never be the same.
I just watched Cops again for the first time in years, and I was wrong in two aspects: It's a see-saw ladder that sets up the wire gag, and the vehicle Keaton grabs as it passes is an automobile, not a streetcar. As you know, eyewitness accounts are always suspect.
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