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DAVID THORBURN: In this
evening lecture what

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00:00:23,750 --> 00:00:28,490
I'd like to do is continue a
bit to expand on and complicate

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00:00:28,490 --> 00:00:31,140
and maybe also
deepen this idea I've

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00:00:31,140 --> 00:00:34,330
been suggesting to you that
I'm labeling the Fred Ott

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principle.

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Really a shorthand
way of describing

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the immensely complex-- and
from an intellectual standpoint,

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00:00:41,420 --> 00:00:43,840
a historical
standpoint-- immensely

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00:00:43,840 --> 00:00:47,820
exciting and astonishing
process whereby

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00:00:47,820 --> 00:00:51,530
film went in an
incredibly short time

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00:00:51,530 --> 00:00:54,180
from being a mere
novelty to being

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00:00:54,180 --> 00:00:57,070
an embedded social formation
in the United States

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00:00:57,070 --> 00:00:59,390
and in other
industrialized societies.

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And not just only a
embedded social formation,

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00:01:03,590 --> 00:01:06,520
becoming by the end
of the 1920s one

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of the central media for
the expression of art,

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00:01:09,670 --> 00:01:11,500
and an artistic medium.

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00:01:11,500 --> 00:01:14,040
So that he went from
being a mere novelty,

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00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:18,600
from Fred Ott's Sneeze in
20 years or so, 25 years,

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00:01:18,600 --> 00:01:22,040
to being a medium of
astonishingly rich and complex

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00:01:22,040 --> 00:01:23,270
narrative art.

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00:01:23,270 --> 00:01:29,260
That progress is part of what I
mean by the Fred Ott principle.

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00:01:29,260 --> 00:01:32,240
And it might be helpful if I
concretize that a little bit

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00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:35,640
more by mentioning a bit more
about what I mean about what

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00:01:35,640 --> 00:01:38,740
I was implying or
referring to when I spoke

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00:01:38,740 --> 00:01:40,910
about that moment of imitation.

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00:01:40,910 --> 00:01:43,790
Remember I said that
there were essentially--

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00:01:43,790 --> 00:01:46,410
that the silent film--
and incidentally,

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00:01:46,410 --> 00:01:48,930
I take it as a model for the
way in which most new media

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00:01:48,930 --> 00:01:51,420
systems develop in culture.

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00:01:51,420 --> 00:01:54,090
You can apply this
same basic schema

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00:01:54,090 --> 00:01:57,570
to other forms of
popular entertainment,

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00:01:57,570 --> 00:02:01,250
including-- shocking
as it may seem--

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00:02:01,250 --> 00:02:02,980
Shakespeare's public theater.

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00:02:02,980 --> 00:02:05,770
And I'll come back to the
implications of that analogy.

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00:02:05,770 --> 00:02:09,169
The idea that Shakespeare
was the movie of his time.

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00:02:09,169 --> 00:02:12,700
That Shakespeare's theater was
the Hollywood studio system

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00:02:12,700 --> 00:02:16,210
of the Elizabethan era.

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00:02:16,210 --> 00:02:17,700
It's a very complicated one.

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00:02:17,700 --> 00:02:19,320
It's a very inspiring one.

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00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:24,970
And it's complicated because it
makes us reassess our inherited

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00:02:24,970 --> 00:02:28,180
notions about what art is,
and where art comes from.

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00:02:28,180 --> 00:02:29,990
One of the subtexts
in this course

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00:02:29,990 --> 00:02:33,410
is precisely that, it has
to do with what I call

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the enabling conditions of art.

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00:02:35,180 --> 00:02:38,770
And I'll come back to that again
as a theme, again and again

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00:02:38,770 --> 00:02:39,700
in the course.

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00:02:39,700 --> 00:02:41,740
So part of what I mean
by the Fred Ott principle

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is this roiling complex,
partly unpredictable process,

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00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:54,520
whereby an enlarging
population incredibly

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00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:58,620
hungry for the novelties being
produced by this new technology

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create a kind of
symbiotic relationship

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00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:04,310
between the audience
and the emerging medium.

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So that as the medium grows
more complicated, in part

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because the audience--
OK, after 5, or 10, or 15

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visits to the Nickelodeon,
or-- after the movies moved out

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of the penny arcades, and began
to take their own space as some

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of you know, and
as it's recounted

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in our reading for
these early weeks,

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the movies first moved out into
what were called Nickelodeons.

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They were storefronts
for the most part.

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And admission was
a nickel, that's

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where they were
called Nickelodeons.

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And you sat in many
of these on benches

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without backs,
next to strangers.

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You didn't have private seats.

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And you would sit in there and
see a series of short films.

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00:03:47,050 --> 00:03:50,030
But the fact that the
Nickelodeons emerged so quickly

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is a mark of how popular a film
became, eve in its relatively

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primitive early form.

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And then, of course, within a
few years of the Nickelodeons

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appearing, what else
began to happen?

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Theaters made specially for
the showing of motion pictures

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that were longer than
the early shorts,

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because film began to expand its
length all through the period

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from 1910 through 1920.

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What's the great moment
when the feature film

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is born in the United States?

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1915.

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Who's the director?

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00:04:21,260 --> 00:04:23,330
D.W. Griffith.

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00:04:23,330 --> 00:04:24,890
What's the film?

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Birth of a Nation.

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00:04:26,010 --> 00:04:27,010
Birth of a Nation.

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00:04:27,010 --> 00:04:30,630
A very complicated example,
because it's content

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is disturbing in some ways.

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It's a very reactionary, and
in some respects racist film.

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It absorbs and
carries forward what

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00:04:39,890 --> 00:04:42,890
we might think of as the
racial prejudices that

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00:04:42,890 --> 00:04:46,237
were very widespread
in American society

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at the turn of the century,
and especially in the South.

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From which Griffith
himself was a southerner,

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00:04:52,230 --> 00:04:53,670
he was born in the South.

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And his film was deeply
influenced by a bestselling

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novel called The Clansman, which
was a celebration of the Ku

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Klux Klan.

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So the content of
Birth of a Nation

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is very unsettling
and disturbing.

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00:05:05,820 --> 00:05:08,840
And even when it
was first released

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00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:11,990
to the public-- to
great acclaim because it

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expanded the possibilities of
movies in all kinds of ways.

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From a technical standpoint it
is an astonishingly important

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00:05:18,610 --> 00:05:19,874
film.

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00:05:19,874 --> 00:05:22,290
And from a content standpoint
it's a very disturbing film.

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00:05:22,290 --> 00:05:24,420
It's a wonderful
reminder of the fact

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00:05:24,420 --> 00:05:26,770
that this progress
I'm describing to you

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00:05:26,770 --> 00:05:30,500
is not an unalloyed
triumphal story.

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00:05:30,500 --> 00:05:33,780
Even as the movies became
more technically complicated,

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00:05:33,780 --> 00:05:37,810
and more demanding, and
longer, and more interested

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00:05:37,810 --> 00:05:40,320
in character, they also
nonetheless carried

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00:05:40,320 --> 00:05:47,110
the lies, and prejudices,
and hierarchical assumptions

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that were embedded in the
society from which they arose.

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How could it be otherwise?

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00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:53,590
Every media form does this.

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00:05:53,590 --> 00:05:56,810
But it's important to make this
point as a way of reminding us

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00:05:56,810 --> 00:06:00,780
that the story we're telling
is not, in some simple sense,

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00:06:00,780 --> 00:06:04,680
just a kind of progress myth
in which we're celebrating

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00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:07,950
development and genius.

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00:06:07,950 --> 00:06:09,980
We're identifying and
locating something

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00:06:09,980 --> 00:06:12,080
more complicated than
that-- the process

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00:06:12,080 --> 00:06:15,430
whereby these cultural
myths, and these stories that

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00:06:15,430 --> 00:06:17,890
are drawn from
inherited older stories,

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00:06:17,890 --> 00:06:23,120
and from the lore of the society
more broadly, more generally,

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00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:26,090
are transformed into
this new medium.

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And they have a tremendous
technical interest.

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But very often they
also have a kind

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00:06:30,230 --> 00:06:32,340
of cultural or
sociological interest

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of a negative kind in the
sense that what they reveal

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are the prejudices, the lies,
the limitations of the society,

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the mythologies that
sustain the society.

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Again this is a matter
to which we'll return.

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One of the deep cultural
functions of American movies,

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especially, was to promulgate
a kind of mythology of America.

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00:06:52,230 --> 00:06:55,260
And we'll talk more
about this when

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we reach certain genre
forms in the second segment

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of the course.

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00:07:01,039 --> 00:07:02,580
I said something
earlier this morning

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00:07:02,580 --> 00:07:06,280
that I want to make
explicit, because I

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00:07:06,280 --> 00:07:10,750
think another way of qualifying
this triumphal story.

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00:07:10,750 --> 00:07:12,670
It's hard because I'm
enthusiastic about what

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I'm looking at.

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00:07:13,295 --> 00:07:16,467
And there is some material
that's so exciting here.

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In a way, what we're
watching is we're

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watching the birth
of the movies.

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We're watching the
discovery of the language

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of cinema in these early films.

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And that's why even though
from an artistic standpoint,

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some of these shorts
are not very rich,

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00:07:29,032 --> 00:07:30,490
I hope they're
interesting enough--

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00:07:30,490 --> 00:07:32,073
that I've made them
interesting to you

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from a historical standpoint.

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00:07:33,670 --> 00:07:37,270
If you look at them closely, you
can see the movies being born.

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00:07:37,270 --> 00:07:44,030
You can see a language, a
syntax for speaking in pictures,

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for new visual language,
this new visual medium being

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developed.

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And if I have time
this evening, I'll

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give you a few more
concrete examples of that.

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00:07:54,740 --> 00:07:57,950
But another way in which one
can qualify this apparently

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00:07:57,950 --> 00:08:00,380
triumphal story, it's
not a triumphal story

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00:08:00,380 --> 00:08:03,100
even though it is a story
of refinement, development,

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00:08:03,100 --> 00:08:05,730
and evolution of a
kind that involves

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00:08:05,730 --> 00:08:09,240
increasing complexity
and technical perfection,

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00:08:09,240 --> 00:08:11,970
technical mastery.

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00:08:11,970 --> 00:08:15,260
It's not merely that, or
not even primarily that.

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It's very important to
recognize among other things,

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00:08:17,900 --> 00:08:21,260
as I implied this
afternoon, that not

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00:08:21,260 --> 00:08:25,500
all the possibilities that are
inherent in the nascent medium

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00:08:25,500 --> 00:08:29,660
are necessarily exploited in
a particular cultural moment.

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Or maybe ever
exploited, depending

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on how things develop.

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00:08:32,419 --> 00:08:33,940
That is to say.

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00:08:33,940 --> 00:08:39,370
I mentioned this afternoon how
for instance, when Edison first

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00:08:39,370 --> 00:08:42,830
conceive the apparatus before
it was actually invented,

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00:08:42,830 --> 00:08:46,770
of the motion picture projector,
and the motion picture camera.

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His first idea was
that he would create

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00:08:48,690 --> 00:08:51,200
an item that would be a consumer
item-- what we would today

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00:08:51,200 --> 00:08:53,030
call a consumer
item-- that would

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00:08:53,030 --> 00:08:54,670
be sold to individual families.

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00:08:54,670 --> 00:08:57,330
And the field would
become an equivalent

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00:08:57,330 --> 00:09:00,860
or a kind of a photo
album, although it

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00:09:00,860 --> 00:09:01,810
would have motion it.

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00:09:01,810 --> 00:09:06,450
And as I suggested
this afternoon,

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00:09:06,450 --> 00:09:09,540
there's no reason why given
the nature of the technology

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00:09:09,540 --> 00:09:13,070
itself, that that vision
of how film might develop

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00:09:13,070 --> 00:09:13,816
was impossible.

193
00:09:13,816 --> 00:09:15,190
In fact, it wasn't
impossible, it

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00:09:15,190 --> 00:09:17,690
was just incredibly
ahead of its time.

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00:09:17,690 --> 00:09:20,290
It took half a century
before something

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00:09:20,290 --> 00:09:22,530
like that actually became
available in society.

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00:09:22,530 --> 00:09:26,300
But there was no reason in
terms of the possibilities

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00:09:26,300 --> 00:09:28,930
of the technology that
that needed to happen.

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00:09:28,930 --> 00:09:30,400
What I'm calling
your attention to

200
00:09:30,400 --> 00:09:32,830
is what is a very
widespread myth.

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00:09:32,830 --> 00:09:36,900
It's especially pernicious
and widespread at MIT.

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00:09:36,900 --> 00:09:39,910
For reasons that are obvious
and understandable we at MIT

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00:09:39,910 --> 00:09:42,395
love to believe the technology
will solve all problems.

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The primary thing
I'm suggesting to you

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00:09:44,020 --> 00:09:45,730
is that the evolution
of the movies

206
00:09:45,730 --> 00:09:47,940
that I want you to be
aware of, this process

207
00:09:47,940 --> 00:09:53,170
of increasing complexity
and compression in which

208
00:09:53,170 --> 00:09:56,170
the movies become a more
and more independent

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00:09:56,170 --> 00:09:57,210
form of expression.

210
00:09:57,210 --> 00:09:59,250
In which the movies
begin to discover

211
00:09:59,250 --> 00:10:02,710
the unique characteristics
of the motion picture camera

212
00:10:02,710 --> 00:10:06,830
and of the environment of the
movie theater, that the movies

213
00:10:06,830 --> 00:10:08,340
begin to explore.

214
00:10:08,340 --> 00:10:10,190
Those qualities
in this new medium

215
00:10:10,190 --> 00:10:11,490
that are unique and special.

216
00:10:11,490 --> 00:10:14,050
That process is important, and
I want you to be aware of it.

217
00:10:14,050 --> 00:10:17,390
But I don't want you to embrace
that principle to uncritically.

218
00:10:17,390 --> 00:10:21,000
Because I want you to
recognize that the technology

219
00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:23,070
itself does not
explain this process.

220
00:10:23,070 --> 00:10:25,720
The processes explained
by cultural factors,

221
00:10:25,720 --> 00:10:26,950
and social factors.

222
00:10:26,950 --> 00:10:32,382
And even sometimes individual's
psychological factors.

223
00:10:32,382 --> 00:10:34,090
What we're talking
about here is the myth

224
00:10:34,090 --> 00:10:36,070
of technological determinism.

225
00:10:36,070 --> 00:10:38,690
The myth that technology
drives culture.

226
00:10:38,690 --> 00:10:41,540
The myth that a new invention
obliterates old inventions.

227
00:10:41,540 --> 00:10:43,756
The truth is much more
complicated than that.

228
00:10:43,756 --> 00:10:45,130
One of the most
remarkable things

229
00:10:45,130 --> 00:10:46,850
about this evolutionary
process I've

230
00:10:46,850 --> 00:10:50,050
been describing, as I said
earlier, is how swift it is.

231
00:10:50,050 --> 00:10:51,470
How fast it is.

232
00:10:51,470 --> 00:10:53,900
How we go from being
a mere novelty,

233
00:10:53,900 --> 00:10:59,650
to becoming a significant
social form by 1910 or so.

234
00:10:59,650 --> 00:11:03,190
And to becoming a virtually
universal aesthetic

235
00:11:03,190 --> 00:11:06,445
and entertainment experience for
the majority of the population

236
00:11:06,445 --> 00:11:08,430
in the country by 1920.

237
00:11:08,430 --> 00:11:11,650
So when something
like 20 or 25 years

238
00:11:11,650 --> 00:11:15,000
the movies go from being an
absolutely unknown or trivial

239
00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:20,230
novelty, sharing space
with fortune tellers,

240
00:11:20,230 --> 00:11:22,630
and strip shows in
the penny arcades,

241
00:11:22,630 --> 00:11:25,380
to becoming not just an
embedded social form, but one

242
00:11:25,380 --> 00:11:28,750
of the dominant economic
engines of the society,

243
00:11:28,750 --> 00:11:31,140
employing tens of
thousands of people

244
00:11:31,140 --> 00:11:35,120
in various direct and
ancillary positions.

245
00:11:35,120 --> 00:11:37,720
And mobilizing virtually
the entire population

246
00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:42,640
of the country in
a regular routine,

247
00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:47,670
a habitual experience to which
they return again and again.

248
00:11:47,670 --> 00:11:50,304
And because the audience is
returning again and again--

249
00:11:50,304 --> 00:11:52,470
remember I said there's a
kind of symbiotic relation

250
00:11:52,470 --> 00:11:54,720
between the audience and
the-- because the audience is

251
00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:56,580
returning again and
again, what happens?

252
00:11:56,580 --> 00:11:59,040
That's also one aspect
of the resources that

253
00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:00,750
are available to the medium.

254
00:12:00,750 --> 00:12:05,740
What begins then to develop
are forms of storytelling

255
00:12:05,740 --> 00:12:08,950
that rely on the audience's
prior memory of other shows.

256
00:12:08,950 --> 00:12:10,950
So that one thing that
emerges very quickly

257
00:12:10,950 --> 00:12:12,930
is what we might
call a star system.

258
00:12:12,930 --> 00:12:16,039
In which particular
actors become identified

259
00:12:16,039 --> 00:12:17,330
with particular kinds of roles.

260
00:12:17,330 --> 00:12:20,010
And audiences want to come
back to see those stars again

261
00:12:20,010 --> 00:12:20,710
and again.

262
00:12:20,710 --> 00:12:22,810
What also begins to happen
is the establishment

263
00:12:22,810 --> 00:12:25,410
of a very rigorous
kind of genre system.

264
00:12:25,410 --> 00:12:27,270
What's a genre?

265
00:12:27,270 --> 00:12:29,040
A category of story.

266
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:30,270
The Western is a genre.

267
00:12:30,270 --> 00:12:32,370
The detective story is a genre.

268
00:12:32,370 --> 00:12:34,365
The elegy is a poetic genre.

269
00:12:37,930 --> 00:12:40,620
And the typical, the
fundamental movie genres

270
00:12:40,620 --> 00:12:42,580
begin to emerge
relatively early.

271
00:12:42,580 --> 00:12:44,190
There's a Western
adventure story.

272
00:12:44,190 --> 00:12:46,670
There's a historical spectacle.

273
00:12:46,670 --> 00:12:51,010
There are certain forms of
urban, crime narrative that

274
00:12:51,010 --> 00:12:56,460
became our detective and
crime films at a later stage.

275
00:12:56,460 --> 00:12:58,400
And there emerge
especially certain forms

276
00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:00,290
of satire and comedy.

277
00:13:00,290 --> 00:13:02,730
So what genre system
begins to emerge as well?

278
00:13:02,730 --> 00:13:06,060
And there are reasons of
course why this kind of thing

279
00:13:06,060 --> 00:13:08,490
is useful to a mass
production system,

280
00:13:08,490 --> 00:13:10,550
to an assembly line system.

281
00:13:13,530 --> 00:13:16,496
If the same movie studio
makes seven Westerns,

282
00:13:16,496 --> 00:13:18,370
they can use the same
horses again and again.

283
00:13:18,370 --> 00:13:19,870
They can use the same set.

284
00:13:19,870 --> 00:13:21,970
They can use the same hats.

285
00:13:21,970 --> 00:13:24,160
And this in fact
happened, they might eve

286
00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,650
be able to use the same clip
of film that shows a cattle

287
00:13:28,650 --> 00:13:30,239
stampede in seven
different movies,

288
00:13:30,239 --> 00:13:31,780
because nobody would
actually see it.

289
00:13:31,780 --> 00:13:35,740
So economies of scale become
possible as the system

290
00:13:35,740 --> 00:13:37,630
begins to regularize itself.

291
00:13:37,630 --> 00:13:41,021
Once it stabilizes after that
period of imitation and patent

292
00:13:41,021 --> 00:13:41,520
warfare.

293
00:13:43,930 --> 00:13:46,100
And there's nothing
noble, or artistic,

294
00:13:46,100 --> 00:13:49,870
or conscious about
this development.

295
00:13:49,870 --> 00:13:51,680
That's part of what
makes it so remarkable.

296
00:13:51,680 --> 00:13:54,570
And it puts out in touch
with the paradox that's

297
00:13:54,570 --> 00:13:56,660
at the very heart of
what I hope to make

298
00:13:56,660 --> 00:13:58,250
you aware of in this course.

299
00:13:58,250 --> 00:14:01,750
It's a paradox that-- I guess
it animates my transition

300
00:14:01,750 --> 00:14:04,980
many years ago now, from a
traditional literary scholar

301
00:14:04,980 --> 00:14:07,890
into someone interested
in film and media.

302
00:14:07,890 --> 00:14:09,952
And it's this paradox.

303
00:14:09,952 --> 00:14:11,410
Based on what I've
been telling you

304
00:14:11,410 --> 00:14:14,520
about this evolution, this
evolution of the medium,

305
00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:15,420
of the film medium.

306
00:14:15,420 --> 00:14:20,460
It's the paradox that
capitalist greed-- the crassest

307
00:14:20,460 --> 00:14:25,350
of alliances between commerce
and modern technology--

308
00:14:25,350 --> 00:14:30,870
might be the enabling conditions
of a complex narrative art.

309
00:14:30,870 --> 00:14:32,840
Where does art come from?

310
00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:35,730
It's not just about art though,
eve about sort of social.

311
00:14:35,730 --> 00:14:38,020
Even if we forget the
question of art, and just

312
00:14:38,020 --> 00:14:40,660
talk about the social
and cultural importance

313
00:14:40,660 --> 00:14:42,919
of movie-going in
modern societies.

314
00:14:42,919 --> 00:14:45,210
Leave out the question of
whether it's an aesthetically

315
00:14:45,210 --> 00:14:46,610
valuable experience.

316
00:14:46,610 --> 00:14:48,660
It's so central to
human experience,

317
00:14:48,660 --> 00:14:51,940
remains so central
to human experience,

318
00:14:51,940 --> 00:14:54,200
that there's a tremendous
paradox in this, that

319
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:57,270
the crassest of alliances
between commerce

320
00:14:57,270 --> 00:14:59,450
and technology.

321
00:14:59,450 --> 00:15:01,055
Nothing noble or
admirable about it.

322
00:15:01,055 --> 00:15:02,430
Nobody's sitting
down thinking, I

323
00:15:02,430 --> 00:15:05,080
want to make a new,
great medium for art.

324
00:15:05,080 --> 00:15:09,630
Nonetheless this alliance
becomes the enabling conditions

325
00:15:09,630 --> 00:15:12,420
for a complex form
of social experience

326
00:15:12,420 --> 00:15:13,860
and of narrative art.

327
00:15:13,860 --> 00:15:16,560
Well, that paradox at the
heart of a lot of what we'll

328
00:15:16,560 --> 00:15:18,050
be looking at in this course.

329
00:15:18,050 --> 00:15:20,210
I hope you'll keep
in mind as we go on.

330
00:15:20,210 --> 00:15:22,710
I'd like to say a couple
of words, not too many,

331
00:15:22,710 --> 00:15:26,530
a couple of words about
The Great Train Robbery.

332
00:15:26,530 --> 00:15:30,660
The very first film
that you've seen.

333
00:15:30,660 --> 00:15:32,160
The Great Train
Robbery is discussed

334
00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:34,830
in some helpful detail in David
Cook's History of Narrative

335
00:15:34,830 --> 00:15:35,330
Film.

336
00:15:35,330 --> 00:15:37,500
And I urge you to look
closely at his account of it.

337
00:15:37,500 --> 00:15:40,040
But I want to remind you
about a couple of highlights.

338
00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:43,130
One is that although The
Great Train Robbery seems

339
00:15:43,130 --> 00:15:45,840
very primitive to us, it's
important to realize that even

340
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:50,870
The Great Train Robbery
is already a refined text.

341
00:15:50,870 --> 00:15:53,900
Most of the most
fundamental principles

342
00:15:53,900 --> 00:15:57,070
of what we might call the
syntax or grammar of the movies

343
00:15:57,070 --> 00:15:59,190
is already embedded in
The Great Train Robbery.

344
00:15:59,190 --> 00:16:02,050
And what that means is
that the five or six year

345
00:16:02,050 --> 00:16:04,210
period before that,
when there was

346
00:16:04,210 --> 00:16:07,200
all this practicing with
non-narrative forms,

347
00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,410
lies behind The
Great Train Robbery.

348
00:16:09,410 --> 00:16:11,980
And what also lies behind
The Great Train Robbery

349
00:16:11,980 --> 00:16:16,030
is this experience of audiences
going in first to the penny

350
00:16:16,030 --> 00:16:17,870
arcades, then to the
Nickelodeons that

351
00:16:17,870 --> 00:16:22,060
begin to open up by the
turn of the 20th century.

352
00:16:22,060 --> 00:16:25,440
And becoming impatient with
repeated scenes that simply

353
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:30,247
show jokes, hoses going off
in people's faces, or trains

354
00:16:30,247 --> 00:16:31,330
coming into a [INAUDIBLE].

355
00:16:31,330 --> 00:16:34,480
After a while the
novelty wears off.

356
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:36,470
But of course, the people
who are making films

357
00:16:36,470 --> 00:16:38,220
are also interested
in what they're doing.

358
00:16:38,220 --> 00:16:41,850
You can feel especially, if you
look at D.W. Griffith's shorts,

359
00:16:41,850 --> 00:16:44,070
and you will have
looked at two of them

360
00:16:44,070 --> 00:16:48,280
in this course-- A Beast
at Bay, from last time,

361
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:50,990
and The Lonedale Operator, which
you'll see tonight before we

362
00:16:50,990 --> 00:16:52,650
turn to the Keaton films.

363
00:16:52,650 --> 00:16:56,637
And you'll see these are just
a sampling of his early work.

364
00:16:56,637 --> 00:16:58,220
But if you look
closely at those where

365
00:16:58,220 --> 00:17:00,440
you can feel Griffith's
own excitement

366
00:17:00,440 --> 00:17:04,180
at discovering the
possibilities of the cinema.

367
00:17:04,180 --> 00:17:08,319
In many cases Griffith is doing
some things with the camera,

368
00:17:08,319 --> 00:17:12,140
doing some things with
the shaping of narrative

369
00:17:12,140 --> 00:17:14,760
in cinema that had
never been done before.

370
00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:16,890
And you can feel
his own excitement

371
00:17:16,890 --> 00:17:21,700
at the possibilities of
this astonishing technology.

372
00:17:21,700 --> 00:17:25,270
Well, the most important
discovery that The Great Train

373
00:17:25,270 --> 00:17:27,240
Robbery shows us--
and again it seems

374
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,360
so obvious and so embedded
that we wouldn't even

375
00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:30,235
think about it today.

376
00:17:30,235 --> 00:17:33,730
We absorb these principles
so deeply into our DNA

377
00:17:33,730 --> 00:17:35,060
that we don't even think.

378
00:17:35,060 --> 00:17:39,070
We learn how to watch movies
in this way from the cradle,

379
00:17:39,070 --> 00:17:40,220
in some ways.

380
00:17:40,220 --> 00:17:43,624
Because by the time
most people today

381
00:17:43,624 --> 00:17:45,040
are five or six
years old, they've

382
00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:48,520
been subjected probably to more
audio/visual images than anyone

383
00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:50,750
alive in 1900.

384
00:17:50,750 --> 00:17:55,280
And we're just cognitively
different in terms

385
00:17:55,280 --> 00:18:01,050
of our capacity to process
audio/visual information.

386
00:18:01,050 --> 00:18:02,760
But imagine an audience
that's completely

387
00:18:02,760 --> 00:18:04,260
illiterate in these
things, that has

388
00:18:04,260 --> 00:18:07,380
to learn this system as the
system itself is evolving.

389
00:18:07,380 --> 00:18:10,750
That's part of the excitement
of looking at these early films.

390
00:18:10,750 --> 00:18:14,130
And the most important discovery
in The Great Train Robbery

391
00:18:14,130 --> 00:18:22,500
is the discovery that the shot,
the single uncut shot of film,

392
00:18:22,500 --> 00:18:26,890
however long it lasts, and
it's dependent on the decision

393
00:18:26,890 --> 00:18:29,310
you make about when to edit it.

394
00:18:29,310 --> 00:18:32,230
So it can go on for a long
time, or it can be very short.

395
00:18:32,230 --> 00:18:35,780
And the length or
the shortness of cuts

396
00:18:35,780 --> 00:18:38,460
also affects sort of the rhythm
of your experience in the film.

397
00:18:38,460 --> 00:18:39,876
And this is something
that you can

398
00:18:39,876 --> 00:18:42,660
see Griffith practicing
with, even as early as

399
00:18:42,660 --> 00:18:43,350
A Beast at Bay.

400
00:18:43,350 --> 00:18:46,450
If you think about the great
climax of the Beast at Bay

401
00:18:46,450 --> 00:18:52,540
where you have the
woman being threatened,

402
00:18:52,540 --> 00:18:55,710
but you also have this
race in the automobile

403
00:18:55,710 --> 00:18:57,370
to try to get there on time.

404
00:18:57,370 --> 00:19:00,200
And then the race to rescue
her by a variety of people.

405
00:19:00,200 --> 00:19:02,810
What Griffith does is
he cuts back and forth.

406
00:19:02,810 --> 00:19:05,550
He creates the principle
of parallel action.

407
00:19:05,550 --> 00:19:07,470
And what he realized,
what he discovered

408
00:19:07,470 --> 00:19:10,860
was that the audience will
recognize this kind of cutting

409
00:19:10,860 --> 00:19:13,240
as showing you simultaneity.

410
00:19:13,240 --> 00:19:15,490
Showing you things that are
going on at the same time.

411
00:19:15,490 --> 00:19:18,680
What he discovered
were in a certain sense

412
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:23,220
how we would cognitively process
certain kinds of gestures

413
00:19:23,220 --> 00:19:23,906
on film.

414
00:19:23,906 --> 00:19:25,280
And what he
discovered of course,

415
00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,940
is that if he cuts, if he edits
more quickly, if he creates

416
00:19:27,940 --> 00:19:30,920
a fast rhythm he
creates excitement.

417
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:32,920
And what he began to
discover was something

418
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:36,590
that-- in later,
directors like Hitchcock

419
00:19:36,590 --> 00:19:38,960
would carry, to an
almost evil pitch--

420
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:42,260
a capacity to manipulate and
control the audience's reaction

421
00:19:42,260 --> 00:19:44,950
by the speed with which
particular images appear

422
00:19:44,950 --> 00:19:46,350
or disappear.

423
00:19:46,350 --> 00:19:49,450
So even at this early stage, you
could see Griffith discovering

424
00:19:49,450 --> 00:19:50,590
important principles.

425
00:19:50,590 --> 00:19:52,930
The most fundamental principle
in a Great Train Robbery,

426
00:19:52,930 --> 00:19:56,000
which is not a Griffith
film, it proceeds Griffith,

427
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,360
is the discovery that the shot
is the basic unit of action.

428
00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:01,260
Why is that a great discovery?

429
00:20:01,260 --> 00:20:06,880
Well, if you think of
the movies as a device

430
00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:11,580
or as a medium that
grows out of especially

431
00:20:11,580 --> 00:20:14,390
a theatrical dispensation,
grows out of other things

432
00:20:14,390 --> 00:20:16,690
as well, novels feed
into it, visual art

433
00:20:16,690 --> 00:20:17,970
feeds into the movies.

434
00:20:17,970 --> 00:20:22,020
But it's certainly true that
most of the major ways in which

435
00:20:22,020 --> 00:20:25,540
directors first
conceive how to think

436
00:20:25,540 --> 00:20:30,409
about the experience of what
the camera is looking at,

437
00:20:30,409 --> 00:20:32,700
they would have been influenced
by their own experience

438
00:20:32,700 --> 00:20:33,360
of theater.

439
00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:34,985
And if you think
about it for a moment,

440
00:20:34,985 --> 00:20:40,080
what you can see, even in The
Great Train Robbery, an impulse

441
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:44,360
to treat the camera
as a stable thing.

442
00:20:44,360 --> 00:20:47,500
There are panning shots in which
the camera will go like this.

443
00:20:47,500 --> 00:20:48,810
But the camera will not track.

444
00:20:48,810 --> 00:20:52,120
It will not move back and
forth, or sideways, off,

445
00:20:52,120 --> 00:20:54,700
in The Great Train Robbery.

446
00:20:54,700 --> 00:20:56,870
That's a discovery that
Griffith is going to make

447
00:20:56,870 --> 00:20:58,490
and will exploit.

448
00:20:58,490 --> 00:21:00,651
And you can see it
in A Beast at Bay.

449
00:21:00,651 --> 00:21:03,150
But in The Great Train Robbery,
we haven't got that far yet,

450
00:21:03,150 --> 00:21:07,570
but what Edwin Porter did
discover was that the shot is

451
00:21:07,570 --> 00:21:08,960
the basic unit of action.

452
00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:11,190
And what this means
is it's not simply

453
00:21:11,190 --> 00:21:13,990
what the camera sees, but
then how the shots are edited

454
00:21:13,990 --> 00:21:15,750
afterwards that is so crucial.

455
00:21:15,750 --> 00:21:17,710
So what he came
to understand was

456
00:21:17,710 --> 00:21:22,026
that the making of any movie
is always a two-stage process.

457
00:21:22,026 --> 00:21:23,400
There's the shooting
of the film,

458
00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:25,180
and then there's the
editing the film.

459
00:21:25,180 --> 00:21:27,637
And that itself is a
fundamental discovery.

460
00:21:27,637 --> 00:21:29,220
But the idea that
the shot is the unit

461
00:21:29,220 --> 00:21:32,250
of action instead of the scene
was hard for movie makers

462
00:21:32,250 --> 00:21:32,789
to get.

463
00:21:32,789 --> 00:21:34,830
What they would do, they
would set the camera up,

464
00:21:34,830 --> 00:21:37,210
and then actors would walk
in front of the camera,

465
00:21:37,210 --> 00:21:39,668
they would do what they had to
do, and they would walk off.

466
00:21:39,668 --> 00:21:40,600
What's going on there?

467
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:44,190
They're conceiving of cinematic
space in theatrical terms.

468
00:21:44,190 --> 00:21:46,270
As soon as the
camera is liberated,

469
00:21:46,270 --> 00:21:48,630
taken off its
tripod, moved around

470
00:21:48,630 --> 00:21:52,530
in some way, allowed to
backup or come close,

471
00:21:52,530 --> 00:21:55,950
even allowed to move laterally.

472
00:21:55,950 --> 00:21:58,650
What we're beginning to do was
to explore more systematically

473
00:21:58,650 --> 00:22:00,600
what the camera's
unique features are.

474
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,240
How the theater is
different from the movies.

475
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,660
How certain effects are
possible in the movies

476
00:22:06,660 --> 00:22:08,520
that would not be
possible in the theater.

477
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:10,360
When you watch the
Keaton films that you're

478
00:22:10,360 --> 00:22:13,470
going to see tonight, watch
for the ways in which Keaton

479
00:22:13,470 --> 00:22:16,850
repeatedly sets up
situations such that when

480
00:22:16,850 --> 00:22:20,730
you see a particular gag of
his, a joke, what you realize

481
00:22:20,730 --> 00:22:23,190
is that the joke could not
have happened in the theater.

482
00:22:23,190 --> 00:22:25,440
It could not have been
told to you verbally.

483
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:26,470
The joke is visual.

484
00:22:26,470 --> 00:22:29,720
The joke involves motion.

485
00:22:29,720 --> 00:22:34,570
The joke involves a
recognition of the powers

486
00:22:34,570 --> 00:22:39,900
of cinematic representation
to tell stories.

487
00:22:39,900 --> 00:22:44,424
You'll see many examples of
this in the Keaton materials

488
00:22:44,424 --> 00:22:45,840
that you'll be
looking at tonight.

489
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,560
So one of the very first
discoveries that's made

490
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:52,020
is the discovery that the shot
is the basic unit of action.

491
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:53,760
A second discovery
is the recognition

492
00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:55,400
that you have to
cut between scenes.

493
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:57,350
You do you're editing
between shots.

494
00:22:59,970 --> 00:23:02,010
Mostly what you do is
you let scenes play out,

495
00:23:02,010 --> 00:23:03,920
even though you might
abruptly cut a scene

496
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:05,656
before the action is completed.

497
00:23:05,656 --> 00:23:07,030
That's another
discovery that was

498
00:23:07,030 --> 00:23:09,250
made, if you cut the
scene-- a person starts

499
00:23:09,250 --> 00:23:12,364
to walk toward the door--
the first, earliest films,

500
00:23:12,364 --> 00:23:14,780
they would show the person
walking all the way to the end,

501
00:23:14,780 --> 00:23:15,630
walking out of the door.

502
00:23:15,630 --> 00:23:17,470
Then, filmmakers
discovered, wait a minute.

503
00:23:17,470 --> 00:23:19,740
There's a way of creating
a kind of quickness here.

504
00:23:19,740 --> 00:23:22,400
Because if I show Thorburn
walking toward the door,

505
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:24,760
starting, and I cut.

506
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:27,640
And he knocks his glasses off.

507
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:29,880
And then I cut, and I wait
till he gets to the door,

508
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:31,213
and we see him leaving the door.

509
00:23:31,213 --> 00:23:34,090
I don't have to watch
him take those 17 steps.

510
00:23:34,090 --> 00:23:37,030
So what's been discovered
is a basic principle

511
00:23:37,030 --> 00:23:40,190
of cinematic syntax.

512
00:23:40,190 --> 00:23:42,230
It seems so obvious to
us, but of course it's

513
00:23:42,230 --> 00:23:45,160
really a great discovery.

514
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:46,940
The properties of
the medium have

515
00:23:46,940 --> 00:23:50,430
to be understood before you can
really begin to explain them.

516
00:23:50,430 --> 00:23:52,292
And that's why I've
asked you to look

517
00:23:52,292 --> 00:23:53,500
at some of these short films.

518
00:23:53,500 --> 00:23:55,083
None of the short
films I've shown you

519
00:23:55,083 --> 00:23:59,560
are completely without
some technical interest.

520
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:01,560
And even though of course
they're the only films

521
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,170
I'm showing you that I
wouldn't sort of make arguments

522
00:24:04,170 --> 00:24:05,586
to defend them as works of art.

523
00:24:05,586 --> 00:24:07,460
But I certainly would
make arguments for them

524
00:24:07,460 --> 00:24:09,650
as technically
fascinating documents.

525
00:24:09,650 --> 00:24:13,040
And I hope you'll look
at them in that light.

526
00:24:13,040 --> 00:24:17,820
So the shot is a basic unit of
action cutting between scenes.

527
00:24:17,820 --> 00:24:19,632
And a couple of other
things that I think

528
00:24:19,632 --> 00:24:21,340
are important in The
Great Train Robbery.

529
00:24:21,340 --> 00:24:23,550
One is that you can see in
The Great Train Robbery,

530
00:24:23,550 --> 00:24:26,897
they're beginning to discover
the value of camera placement.

531
00:24:26,897 --> 00:24:28,480
What happens when
you place the camera

532
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,220
in a particular position.

533
00:24:31,220 --> 00:24:33,464
Especially if action's
coming toward the camera,

534
00:24:33,464 --> 00:24:35,630
that you might not want to
place the camera directly

535
00:24:35,630 --> 00:24:37,170
in front of the action
that's coming towards you,

536
00:24:37,170 --> 00:24:39,628
that something happens if you
place it slightly forward it,

537
00:24:39,628 --> 00:24:41,310
so it could see it
at a slight angle.

538
00:24:41,310 --> 00:24:43,900
It creates a greater illusion
of depth in the image,

539
00:24:43,900 --> 00:24:44,444
for example.

540
00:24:44,444 --> 00:24:45,860
And it does other
kinds of things.

541
00:24:45,860 --> 00:24:47,490
It let's the action
get closer to you

542
00:24:47,490 --> 00:24:50,880
before the scene has to be cut.

543
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:52,660
So camera placement
is something that you

544
00:24:52,660 --> 00:24:55,140
can see is beginning
to be learned,

545
00:24:55,140 --> 00:24:57,820
beginning to be mastered in the
great trick in The Great Train

546
00:24:57,820 --> 00:25:03,454
Robbery, or camera position.

547
00:25:03,454 --> 00:25:05,370
And finally, one might
mention one other thing

548
00:25:05,370 --> 00:25:08,800
that a again establishes
a principle that

549
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:13,300
then is continuous being
useful 50 or 75 years.

550
00:25:13,300 --> 00:25:16,120
And that's the principle
of the process shot.

551
00:25:16,120 --> 00:25:18,300
You can see in The
Great Train Robbery

552
00:25:18,300 --> 00:25:21,340
that some effects have
been created by tricks.

553
00:25:21,340 --> 00:25:24,967
That there's back
projection used in that.

554
00:25:24,967 --> 00:25:26,800
It looks crude to us,
we can see through it.

555
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,270
But the early audiences would
not have recognized that.

556
00:25:30,270 --> 00:25:33,670
We're so used to location
filming that we can pick out--

557
00:25:33,670 --> 00:25:38,445
we today can see through the
process shots of earlier films.

558
00:25:38,445 --> 00:25:40,770
This in fact damages
some of Hitchcock's films

559
00:25:40,770 --> 00:25:41,740
very badly today.

560
00:25:41,740 --> 00:25:44,310
Because Hitchcock
used a lot of process

561
00:25:44,310 --> 00:25:46,120
shot effects in his films.

562
00:25:46,120 --> 00:25:48,120
When he made them the
audiences were used to it.

563
00:25:48,120 --> 00:25:49,661
There was a convention
of film going.

564
00:25:49,661 --> 00:25:53,320
Today because cameras are so
much more mobile and light,

565
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:55,510
and so much has been
learned about how

566
00:25:55,510 --> 00:25:58,830
to-- even about filming
in low light and so forth.

567
00:25:58,830 --> 00:26:04,187
That there's much less
use of process shots.

568
00:26:04,187 --> 00:26:05,770
A new kind of process
shot, I suppose,

569
00:26:05,770 --> 00:26:08,326
is emerging with
digital animation.

570
00:26:08,326 --> 00:26:09,950
And one could say
it's sort of a return

571
00:26:09,950 --> 00:26:14,310
to the idea of manipulating
the image in illegitimate ways.

572
00:26:14,310 --> 00:26:17,190
But in The Great
Train Robbery we

573
00:26:17,190 --> 00:26:20,130
can even see the beginnings
of the use of process shots.

574
00:26:20,130 --> 00:26:23,010
Of recognizing that you can
create effects in the movies

575
00:26:23,010 --> 00:26:25,250
that are unique and special,
that no other medium

576
00:26:25,250 --> 00:26:26,280
would allow you to do.

577
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:28,387
And what's embedded
there is science fiction.

578
00:26:28,387 --> 00:26:29,970
What's embedded they
are all the kinds

579
00:26:29,970 --> 00:26:32,330
of imaginative, not
just science fictional.

580
00:26:32,330 --> 00:26:33,946
All the kinds of
imaginative movies

581
00:26:33,946 --> 00:26:35,570
that have been made
that maybe take you

582
00:26:35,570 --> 00:26:37,380
inside people's
nightmares or dreams.

583
00:26:37,380 --> 00:26:40,222
Where what the film
is showing you now--

584
00:26:40,222 --> 00:26:42,950
what is embedded in
that process shot?

585
00:26:42,950 --> 00:26:47,110
Even more fully embedded in
Melies', the French director's

586
00:26:47,110 --> 00:26:49,460
films, like Trip to the
Moon, where he explicitly

587
00:26:49,460 --> 00:26:51,990
goes into a realm of fantasy.

588
00:26:51,990 --> 00:26:54,810
It's not only that the film is
the most profoundly realistic

589
00:26:54,810 --> 00:26:56,260
medium that was ever invented.

590
00:26:56,260 --> 00:27:01,200
It may also be the
most expressive medium

591
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,870
for the rendering of
non-realistic states

592
00:27:04,870 --> 00:27:08,970
of dream, of
nightmare, of fantasy.

593
00:27:08,970 --> 00:27:12,980
Because of the freedom that
the film medium allows.

594
00:27:12,980 --> 00:27:15,720
And even these
implications are at least

595
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,230
embedded in the use of the
process shots in Porter's The

596
00:27:19,230 --> 00:27:20,850
Great Train Robbery.

597
00:27:20,850 --> 00:27:22,740
The other short
that you're going

598
00:27:22,740 --> 00:27:24,700
to see tonight that
is not by Keaton

599
00:27:24,700 --> 00:27:26,060
is called The Lonedale Operator.

600
00:27:26,060 --> 00:27:31,466
It was made in 1911.

601
00:27:31,466 --> 00:27:35,810
In a way it's the most
advanced film of its time.

602
00:27:35,810 --> 00:27:37,500
And what I hope
when you look at it,

603
00:27:37,500 --> 00:27:40,550
you'll watch especially
for how much more complex

604
00:27:40,550 --> 00:27:43,050
it is than, let's say,
The Great Train Robbery.

605
00:27:43,050 --> 00:27:46,306
And there'll be a kind of
small measure of this Fred Ott

606
00:27:46,306 --> 00:27:47,930
principle that I've
been talking about.

607
00:27:47,930 --> 00:27:50,610
Let me mention a couple of
things about The Lonedale

608
00:27:50,610 --> 00:27:51,270
Operator.

609
00:27:51,270 --> 00:27:54,490
Between 1907 and
1911, most films

610
00:27:54,490 --> 00:27:58,480
consisted of no more
than 24 separate shots.

611
00:27:58,480 --> 00:28:03,350
Between 1908 and 1913,
led by D.W. Griffith

612
00:28:03,350 --> 00:28:05,630
and his company, The
Biograph Company,

613
00:28:05,630 --> 00:28:11,130
many more shots were introduced
into a single reel of film.

614
00:28:11,130 --> 00:28:12,690
And in The Lonedale
Operator, there

615
00:28:12,690 --> 00:28:17,200
are 98 shots, six
intertitles, one main title,

616
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,270
and two written inserts.

617
00:28:19,270 --> 00:28:21,520
All within a 17 minutely length.

618
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,830
But think of just the
access of complexity

619
00:28:24,830 --> 00:28:26,815
that has occurred just
in less than 10 years.

620
00:28:30,709 --> 00:28:32,250
It's such a complicated
film that one

621
00:28:32,250 --> 00:28:34,583
of the things we realized,
even looking at it if we look

622
00:28:34,583 --> 00:28:37,160
closely is that it
actually required

623
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:39,290
a kind of attentiveness
that earlier films did not.

624
00:28:39,290 --> 00:28:41,220
As filmmakers began
to make these things,

625
00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:43,120
and began to make
them longer, and began

626
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:44,370
to make them more complicated.

627
00:28:44,370 --> 00:28:45,911
They realized that
they couldn't just

628
00:28:45,911 --> 00:28:47,630
bring the camera out
and start shooting.

629
00:28:47,630 --> 00:28:51,530
They began to develop
the formal rationalizing

630
00:28:51,530 --> 00:28:53,780
strategies that led to
the making of movies

631
00:28:53,780 --> 00:28:55,400
as we understand them.

632
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:57,907
There was a four day
shooting schedule created

633
00:28:57,907 --> 00:28:58,990
for The Lonedale Operator.

634
00:28:58,990 --> 00:29:02,824
It was one of the first
films to have this format.

635
00:29:02,824 --> 00:29:04,240
And of course it's
the format that

636
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:06,530
is followed today with
virtually every film

637
00:29:06,530 --> 00:29:10,250
in different aspects.

638
00:29:10,250 --> 00:29:15,140
And this also required a
preplanned shooting script.

639
00:29:15,140 --> 00:29:18,920
They had to preplan all of their
shooting, all of their shots,

640
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:20,390
all of their camera angles.

641
00:29:20,390 --> 00:29:22,529
They need a shooting
script, a written script.

642
00:29:22,529 --> 00:29:24,320
Films didn't have
written scripts at first,

643
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,180
but Lonedale did.

644
00:29:26,180 --> 00:29:28,000
And it also required
in order for them

645
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:30,650
to make their schedule,
out of order shooting.

646
00:29:30,650 --> 00:29:33,210
That is to say they had to
shoot certain things not

647
00:29:33,210 --> 00:29:35,095
in the sequential order.

648
00:29:35,095 --> 00:29:37,780
And that's one of the most
basic principles of filmmaking.

649
00:29:37,780 --> 00:29:39,610
Because once you
set up the camera

650
00:29:39,610 --> 00:29:42,560
for a shot of a
particular environment,

651
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,950
if that environment shows
up later in the film,

652
00:29:44,950 --> 00:29:48,070
it's unbelievably more
expensive and time consuming

653
00:29:48,070 --> 00:29:49,720
to reconstitute that whole set.

654
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:53,280
So almost all films
to this very day

655
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,440
are still shot out
of sequence in order

656
00:29:55,440 --> 00:30:02,600
to maximize the time you have,
in order to work at your most

657
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:03,620
efficient.

658
00:30:03,620 --> 00:30:06,090
It's not an efficient
way to make a movie

659
00:30:06,090 --> 00:30:07,820
to shoot it
sequentially, to follow

660
00:30:07,820 --> 00:30:11,370
the to follow the script in
its chronological sequence.

661
00:30:11,370 --> 00:30:13,390
And The Lonedale
Operator is maybe

662
00:30:13,390 --> 00:30:16,620
the first film have to
have all of these features

663
00:30:16,620 --> 00:30:21,890
that we would associate with
a modern or contemporary film.

664
00:30:21,890 --> 00:30:25,406
You might notice in it's an
immensely complex films, even

665
00:30:25,406 --> 00:30:26,405
in terms of its content.

666
00:30:26,405 --> 00:30:31,300
And I won't talk about that
much now except to say this,

667
00:30:31,300 --> 00:30:34,260
watch the way in
which the film tries

668
00:30:34,260 --> 00:30:39,430
to deal with what we might
call hierarchies of gender.

669
00:30:39,430 --> 00:30:43,650
The film is partly about how
a woman takes on a man's job.

670
00:30:43,650 --> 00:30:45,750
I think it's guess it's
her father, isn't it?

671
00:30:45,750 --> 00:30:46,980
Her father is ill.

672
00:30:46,980 --> 00:30:51,480
And she has to take over
running the train station.

673
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,300
And so there's a
certain sense in which

674
00:30:53,300 --> 00:30:55,710
one of the things that's
dramatized socially

675
00:30:55,710 --> 00:30:59,210
is a woman moving into
a masculine realm.

676
00:30:59,210 --> 00:31:01,780
Taking on a role that's
more aggressive than

677
00:31:01,780 --> 00:31:07,630
is appropriate for the
gender ideologies that

678
00:31:07,630 --> 00:31:10,210
are dominant at the end of
the 19th century in the United

679
00:31:10,210 --> 00:31:10,820
States.

680
00:31:10,820 --> 00:31:13,150
But the film was pretty
clever about this,

681
00:31:13,150 --> 00:31:15,580
like many such popular texts.

682
00:31:15,580 --> 00:31:19,700
Because although it does grant
this woman a certain kind

683
00:31:19,700 --> 00:31:22,150
of masculine authority
and competence,

684
00:31:22,150 --> 00:31:24,940
it also has other things in
the film that balance that.

685
00:31:24,940 --> 00:31:28,540
That remind us that she is
still nonetheless a weak vessel.

686
00:31:28,540 --> 00:31:30,670
That she is still
a damsel in stress

687
00:31:30,670 --> 00:31:34,730
like the typical Victorian
construction of women.

688
00:31:34,730 --> 00:31:36,740
And what you can see is
that the movie exhibits

689
00:31:36,740 --> 00:31:41,490
an anxiety about gender roles
that's also an anxiety that's

690
00:31:41,490 --> 00:31:43,940
resident in the society itself.

691
00:31:43,940 --> 00:31:46,150
And I won't talk
more about this now.

692
00:31:46,150 --> 00:31:49,150
We will develop this
aspect of the movies

693
00:31:49,150 --> 00:31:53,140
as a reflection of social
anxieties and social problems

694
00:31:53,140 --> 00:31:54,960
as the course goes on.

695
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:56,460
But I do want to
call your attention

696
00:31:56,460 --> 00:31:59,084
to certain technical things that
you can watch for, to at least

697
00:31:59,084 --> 00:32:01,280
one technical item in the film.

698
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,220
It contains what might
be called rhyming scenes.

699
00:32:04,220 --> 00:32:05,970
In which at one
point in the film

700
00:32:05,970 --> 00:32:08,500
you'll see a sequence of
scenes in a particular shot.

701
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:11,060
And then, later in the film,
almost exactly the same shot

702
00:32:11,060 --> 00:32:11,884
will reappear.

703
00:32:11,884 --> 00:32:13,300
And the effect of
this, of course,

704
00:32:13,300 --> 00:32:15,460
is to create a
sense of coherence

705
00:32:15,460 --> 00:32:17,620
and a sense of familiarity
in the audience.

706
00:32:17,620 --> 00:32:20,450
It's actually a very
subtle and careful strategy

707
00:32:20,450 --> 00:32:23,090
that Griffith himself devised.

708
00:32:23,090 --> 00:32:26,640
It creates a kind of continuity
and clarity to the whole film.

709
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:30,200
Watch, for example, how the
doorway to the Lonedale station

710
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,470
is photographed when
you first see it.

711
00:32:32,470 --> 00:32:37,050
How this image anchors the
film's spatial relationships.

712
00:32:37,050 --> 00:32:40,050
And how the film has a certain
trajectory of movement that is

713
00:32:40,050 --> 00:32:41,960
repeated as the film goes on.

714
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:43,630
So that for example,
early in the film,

715
00:32:43,630 --> 00:32:46,460
we see the heroine
go from the exterior

716
00:32:46,460 --> 00:32:48,540
to the interior of
the ticket office,

717
00:32:48,540 --> 00:32:51,760
and then to the inner office
of the telegraph operator.

718
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:52,920
We see her do this.

719
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:57,120
And then, this sets up a basic
location and basic action

720
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:58,350
for the entire film.

721
00:32:58,350 --> 00:33:01,630
It's as if what happens
in that moment sets up,

722
00:33:01,630 --> 00:33:04,030
creates a familiarity
for the audience with it,

723
00:33:04,030 --> 00:33:05,489
the geography of the movie.

724
00:33:05,489 --> 00:33:07,030
Because a lot of
the action then will

725
00:33:07,030 --> 00:33:09,540
depend on our understanding
about geography.

726
00:33:09,540 --> 00:33:13,120
And then there at least four
different times that Griffith

727
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:18,960
repeats that basic three-shot
trajectory, from the exterior

728
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:20,730
to the interior of
the ticket office,

729
00:33:20,730 --> 00:33:24,770
and then to the inner office
of the telegraph operator.

730
00:33:24,770 --> 00:33:27,450
It happens four
times in the film.

731
00:33:27,450 --> 00:33:30,524
So the film has a kind
of visual coherence.

732
00:33:30,524 --> 00:33:32,690
By the time you come to it
the third or fourth time,

733
00:33:32,690 --> 00:33:35,860
it's as if you were intimate
with the physical geography

734
00:33:35,860 --> 00:33:36,420
of the movie.

735
00:33:36,420 --> 00:33:38,140
This is actually a
structural feature

736
00:33:38,140 --> 00:33:42,120
that is easy to miss it, but
it's actually very artful.

737
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,340
And we can see it's a mark of
how far film has come, even

738
00:33:45,340 --> 00:33:48,750
by 1911, that this
level of attentiveness

739
00:33:48,750 --> 00:33:50,650
is available to us in the film.

740
00:33:50,650 --> 00:33:53,440
There's much more that could
be said about The Lonedale

741
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,230
Operator, but I will leave
it to your intelligence

742
00:33:56,230 --> 00:33:59,140
and your attentiveness to
try to pick out more things.

743
00:33:59,140 --> 00:34:03,500
And again we're only talking
about a 17-minute film.

744
00:34:03,500 --> 00:34:09,290
Well, Buster Keaton's career
could be said, in some degree,

745
00:34:09,290 --> 00:34:14,130
to enact in small the larger
processes I've been describing.

746
00:34:14,130 --> 00:34:15,610
He comes into film late.

747
00:34:15,610 --> 00:34:18,560
And in fact, if we were working
perfectly chronologically

748
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,250
in terms of when Chaplin
became a director,

749
00:34:21,250 --> 00:34:22,928
he would precede Keaton.

750
00:34:22,928 --> 00:34:24,469
But I've organized
the film according

751
00:34:24,469 --> 00:34:26,550
to the dates of
the feature films,

752
00:34:26,550 --> 00:34:29,900
and the general is much
of a decade earlier

753
00:34:29,900 --> 00:34:31,030
than modern times.

754
00:34:31,030 --> 00:34:33,375
Which is the last,
quote, "silent film."

755
00:34:33,375 --> 00:34:35,000
It's not really a
silent film, but it's

756
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,540
the last silent film in a
deep sense that was ever made.

757
00:34:38,540 --> 00:34:41,190
It was made in the
sound era, in 1936.

758
00:34:41,190 --> 00:34:43,760
And next week we'll talk more
about the implications of that,

759
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,139
and why that was a very daring
thing for Chaplin to do.

760
00:34:47,139 --> 00:34:49,480
Something like almost a decade
after the advent of sound

761
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,199
he made a movie that essentially
had no dialogue in it.

762
00:34:52,199 --> 00:34:54,590
So Keaton came a little later.

763
00:34:54,590 --> 00:35:01,260
Keaton comes into movie making a
little few years after Chaplin.

764
00:35:01,260 --> 00:35:03,540
But his career has a
similar trajectory.

765
00:35:03,540 --> 00:35:05,830
He began his career
in legitimate theater,

766
00:35:05,830 --> 00:35:11,562
in vaudeville and on
the performance circuit.

767
00:35:11,562 --> 00:35:14,090
He was an Acrobat
from a very young age,

768
00:35:14,090 --> 00:35:17,835
from the age of two or three
was in his parents stage act.

769
00:35:20,590 --> 00:35:22,850
And in fact, he learned a
lot of his acrobatic feats

770
00:35:22,850 --> 00:35:23,920
on his parents stage act.

771
00:35:23,920 --> 00:35:26,917
One very famous passage in his--
his father used to take him,

772
00:35:26,917 --> 00:35:28,750
he was just a young
kid, three or four years

773
00:35:28,750 --> 00:35:31,290
old, five years old, he
would take him by his legs

774
00:35:31,290 --> 00:35:33,280
and swing him back
and forth, like this.

775
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:34,480
He had very long hair.

776
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,384
And he would sweep the
floor with his hair.

777
00:35:36,384 --> 00:35:38,050
And then, swing him
two or three times--

778
00:35:38,050 --> 00:35:40,216
this would happen life--
he would swing it like this

779
00:35:40,216 --> 00:35:41,220
and let him go.

780
00:35:41,220 --> 00:35:43,880
And the kid, five years old,
would fly against the wall

781
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:44,790
and fall down.

782
00:35:44,790 --> 00:35:45,990
It would look terrible.

783
00:35:45,990 --> 00:35:48,940
And later in his life,
Keaton talked about this.

784
00:35:48,940 --> 00:35:50,760
There were actually
some cities in which

785
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:56,740
the societies the prevention
of cruelty to children came in,

786
00:35:56,740 --> 00:35:58,916
shut down the act, wouldn't
allow the act to go on.

787
00:35:58,916 --> 00:36:00,790
Not stupid, because his
father was a drunkard

788
00:36:00,790 --> 00:36:02,440
and sometimes performed drunk.

789
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,530
And Keaton was
sometimes injured.

790
00:36:04,530 --> 00:36:07,390
He was also injured when he
made his own movies, because he

791
00:36:07,390 --> 00:36:09,360
was such a daring acrobat.

792
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:13,510
And Keaton recounts that when he
first began to perform in this,

793
00:36:13,510 --> 00:36:18,130
he would make faces, faces that
indicated pain, or happiness,

794
00:36:18,130 --> 00:36:20,750
or relief, when his father
was manipulating this way.

795
00:36:20,750 --> 00:36:24,210
But he found that the audience
responded much more comically,

796
00:36:24,210 --> 00:36:25,960
much more immediately,
if he just

797
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:28,120
kept his face expressionless.

798
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:29,950
And that's where
they're developed,

799
00:36:29,950 --> 00:36:35,600
the probably mistaken label
for Keaton, of the great stone

800
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:36,420
face.

801
00:36:36,420 --> 00:36:37,920
And in his films
very often you'll

802
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,450
see this young man facing
monumental catastrophe.

803
00:36:41,450 --> 00:36:42,870
His face would
look out at things

804
00:36:42,870 --> 00:36:44,245
without ever
changing expression,

805
00:36:44,245 --> 00:36:47,130
and there is something
kind of comical about that.

806
00:36:47,130 --> 00:36:50,150
You'll see some examples
of this in the general.

807
00:36:50,150 --> 00:36:52,730
Well, you'll see in
the two short films

808
00:36:52,730 --> 00:36:55,260
that Keaton began to
make that he enters film

809
00:36:55,260 --> 00:36:58,014
at already a relatively
sophisticated time.

810
00:36:58,014 --> 00:36:59,680
And the shorts I'm
asking you to look at

811
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:04,490
are very interesting, remarkable
films in their own way.

812
00:37:04,490 --> 00:37:06,490
And one of the
things they teach us,

813
00:37:06,490 --> 00:37:10,770
and one of the reasons I want
you look closely at Keaton

814
00:37:10,770 --> 00:37:14,130
is they show us yet again
another aspect of what

815
00:37:14,130 --> 00:37:18,860
I mean when I talk
about the Fred Ott

816
00:37:18,860 --> 00:37:24,530
principle, this development
of evolution and increasing

817
00:37:24,530 --> 00:37:25,440
complexity.

818
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:31,170
Because if you look at Cops,
or if you look at One Week,

819
00:37:31,170 --> 00:37:33,430
what you will see Keaton
doing in those films

820
00:37:33,430 --> 00:37:36,030
is learning how to
link jokes together

821
00:37:36,030 --> 00:37:39,140
in some sort of a coherent way.

822
00:37:39,140 --> 00:37:42,470
And there are wonderful coherent
sequences in these films.

823
00:37:42,470 --> 00:37:44,260
But still one doesn't
feel that there's

824
00:37:44,260 --> 00:37:45,843
a real character in
them, that there's

825
00:37:45,843 --> 00:37:49,750
a sustained, coherent, fictional
universe being dramatized.

826
00:37:49,750 --> 00:37:51,500
Maybe in Cops one
does feel this.

827
00:37:51,500 --> 00:37:54,640
This much more sort of
textual coherence in Cops.

828
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,690
But what we can
see Keaton doing is

829
00:37:56,690 --> 00:37:59,520
beginning to move from
the idea of a single joke

830
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:01,360
to a sequence of jokes.

831
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:03,870
And then, by the time
we get to the general,

832
00:38:03,870 --> 00:38:07,600
moving from a single joke
to a sequence of jokes

833
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,640
to a sustained narrative,
which incorporates

834
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,000
within it various
kinds of comical jokes,

835
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:14,500
and also sequence jokes.

836
00:38:14,500 --> 00:38:17,530
Because Keaton's best jokes
are not single jokes at all,

837
00:38:17,530 --> 00:38:20,840
they're one liners, but the joke
will be told again and again.

838
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,156
Or really, what will happen
is he will do something,

839
00:38:23,156 --> 00:38:24,280
and you'll think how could.

840
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:26,822
And then, the next step will
top what he's done before.

841
00:38:26,822 --> 00:38:28,030
Then, the next step will top.

842
00:38:28,030 --> 00:38:30,355
You think that he
got to a point where

843
00:38:30,355 --> 00:38:33,350
it'd be impossible to add
another comic complication

844
00:38:33,350 --> 00:38:36,260
to what he's done when
he, of course, does it.

845
00:38:36,260 --> 00:38:41,190
And this becomes one of the deep
principles of Keaton's comedy.

846
00:38:41,190 --> 00:38:44,120
There are numerous examples
of it in both the two shorts,

847
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,482
and in the longer
film The General.

848
00:38:47,482 --> 00:38:49,440
But let me mention an
example from The General.

849
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:51,560
Very early in The
General, there's

850
00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:54,680
a sequence-- it's probably the
quintessential Keaton sequence,

851
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:58,730
and I won't go into such detail
as to spoil the film for you.

852
00:38:58,730 --> 00:39:01,570
But let me just say,
it involves a cannon,

853
00:39:01,570 --> 00:39:05,090
and it involves Keaton.

854
00:39:05,090 --> 00:39:10,010
Keaton plays the engineer of
a locomotive, a locomotive

855
00:39:10,010 --> 00:39:10,510
engineer.

856
00:39:10,510 --> 00:39:14,216
The general of the title
is not a military general,

857
00:39:14,216 --> 00:39:15,590
it's a locomotive,
the locomotive

858
00:39:15,590 --> 00:39:17,150
is called the General.

859
00:39:17,150 --> 00:39:20,040
And the film recounts a
historically true story

860
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:27,440
of a time when the
Union Army came

861
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,550
into Confederate territory, and
stole a locomotive belonging

862
00:39:30,550 --> 00:39:33,710
to the Confederacy.

863
00:39:33,710 --> 00:39:38,410
And Keaton, in a comic
vein retells this story.

864
00:39:38,410 --> 00:39:40,320
When you watch this
cannon sequence,

865
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:42,980
you'll see exactly what I mean.

866
00:39:42,980 --> 00:39:46,340
And this sequences at the
heart of James Agee's essay

867
00:39:46,340 --> 00:39:47,711
on the silent film comedy.

868
00:39:47,711 --> 00:39:49,960
When you read that essay,
you'll see even more clearly

869
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,919
what I mean by a trajectory
joke or a sequence joke.

870
00:39:52,919 --> 00:39:54,460
Which builds, and
builds, and builds,

871
00:39:54,460 --> 00:39:56,060
and keeps topping itself.

872
00:39:56,060 --> 00:39:58,900
Well, this cannon sequence
is a perfect example of that.

873
00:39:58,900 --> 00:40:01,090
And it's a perfect
example of it not only

874
00:40:01,090 --> 00:40:04,150
because we see the joke getting
more complicated as it goes on,

875
00:40:04,150 --> 00:40:06,620
but as the joke becomes more
complicated something else

876
00:40:06,620 --> 00:40:08,250
happens.

877
00:40:08,250 --> 00:40:09,690
The joke becomes
more than a joke,

878
00:40:09,690 --> 00:40:12,020
it becomes a kind of
comment on experience.

879
00:40:12,020 --> 00:40:17,170
It becomes a kind of comment
on what life is like.

880
00:40:17,170 --> 00:40:19,350
That is to say, we
move from something

881
00:40:19,350 --> 00:40:21,410
that simply makes us
smile to something that

882
00:40:21,410 --> 00:40:23,060
makes us think about
the world, that

883
00:40:23,060 --> 00:40:25,200
comments on the
world, that imagines

884
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:26,810
the world in a coherent way.

885
00:40:26,810 --> 00:40:30,310
I'll try to be more explicit
about this in a moment.

886
00:40:30,310 --> 00:40:35,020
So in Keaton's career, we see
him doing astonishing things

887
00:40:35,020 --> 00:40:35,720
as an Acrobat.

888
00:40:35,720 --> 00:40:38,920
And we would admire him just
for his acrobatic performances

889
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:40,990
in these films.

890
00:40:40,990 --> 00:40:42,870
In The General for
example, the way

891
00:40:42,870 --> 00:40:46,110
in which when he's piloting
his locomotive, chasing

892
00:40:46,110 --> 00:40:48,520
the people who have stolen
his original locomotive, how

893
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:50,440
he's the only one on the train.

894
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,120
And he crawls all
over the train.

895
00:40:54,660 --> 00:40:57,380
While the train is running he'll
crawl up to the front of it.

896
00:40:57,380 --> 00:40:59,379
He'll run to the back of
it to put more fuel in.

897
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,630
And also, you can see this stuff
happening, really happening.

898
00:41:05,630 --> 00:41:08,560
It's not faked in any
way, because there's

899
00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:10,600
a camera following the
train as it's moving.

900
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:12,972
You can see it's really
moving, because you can see it.

901
00:41:12,972 --> 00:41:14,430
You can see it
moving on the track,

902
00:41:14,430 --> 00:41:16,600
and you can see the
world behind it.

903
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:19,610
And you can tell that Keaton
is not taking these effects.

904
00:41:19,610 --> 00:41:23,910
Well, this cannon sequence
is a sublimely rich example

905
00:41:23,910 --> 00:41:26,670
of this complex process
I've been describing.

906
00:41:26,670 --> 00:41:28,870
And it has to do
in part with what

907
00:41:28,870 --> 00:41:31,510
I call the multiplicity
principle, Which

908
00:41:31,510 --> 00:41:33,110
I will define in a moment.

909
00:41:33,110 --> 00:41:38,960
So we see Keaton as
an acrobat actor.

910
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,010
As a man, much
more than Chaplin,

911
00:41:41,010 --> 00:41:43,972
interested in the technology of
motion pictures, and of cinema.

912
00:41:43,972 --> 00:41:45,430
And you'll see a
couple of examples

913
00:41:45,430 --> 00:41:47,138
in the films you going
to look at tonight

914
00:41:47,138 --> 00:41:52,220
in which we see Keaton exploring
in a somewhat systematic way

915
00:41:52,220 --> 00:41:54,640
the nature of the illusion
of motion pictures.

916
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:58,030
There's one remarkable
comical moment in One Week.

917
00:41:58,030 --> 00:42:01,370
In which the heroine
gets into a bathtub,

918
00:42:01,370 --> 00:42:04,092
and it looks like she's
sitting in the bathtub.

919
00:42:04,092 --> 00:42:05,550
She's starting to
get up, and looks

920
00:42:05,550 --> 00:42:07,966
like you're actually about to
see some unmentionable parts

921
00:42:07,966 --> 00:42:08,840
of her body.

922
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:10,330
And just as that's
about to happen,

923
00:42:10,330 --> 00:42:12,894
a hand comes in front of
the camera and blocks you.

924
00:42:12,894 --> 00:42:15,060
And it's actually a very
disturbing moment in a way,

925
00:42:15,060 --> 00:42:18,267
because it interrupts
the narrative flow.

926
00:42:18,267 --> 00:42:19,850
It's an intervention
from the outside.

927
00:42:19,850 --> 00:42:20,630
Whose hand did it?

928
00:42:20,630 --> 00:42:22,300
It's not a character
in the film.

929
00:42:22,300 --> 00:42:24,140
It's the director's.

930
00:42:24,140 --> 00:42:25,690
Very bold moment,
because what it

931
00:42:25,690 --> 00:42:28,220
does is it reminds you of
the film as an artifact.

932
00:42:28,220 --> 00:42:30,725
It reminds you that the
film is an artifact.

933
00:42:30,725 --> 00:42:32,850
In other words, it's a
moment of self-reflexiveness

934
00:42:32,850 --> 00:42:35,580
self-consciousness that you
would never seen a Chaplin

935
00:42:35,580 --> 00:42:39,950
film, but shows Keaton's
astonishing interest

936
00:42:39,950 --> 00:42:42,320
in the technology
of motion pictures.

937
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,889
I had many examples that
Greg and I had ready,

938
00:42:44,889 --> 00:42:46,430
but I don't have
time to show to you.

939
00:42:46,430 --> 00:42:50,420
Maybe you could put up, while
I'm talking, The Playhouse.

940
00:42:50,420 --> 00:42:52,170
One of his most famous
examples of this

941
00:42:52,170 --> 00:42:54,740
is a film called The Playhouse,
in which he ends up playing

942
00:42:54,740 --> 00:42:56,190
every role in the movie.

943
00:42:56,190 --> 00:42:58,820
And the way he did was
incredibly interesting.

944
00:43:01,620 --> 00:43:05,660
He would shoot the film,
but he put masking tape

945
00:43:05,660 --> 00:43:06,940
over the lens of the camera.

946
00:43:06,940 --> 00:43:10,220
And only one little, tiny
part of the lens of the camera

947
00:43:10,220 --> 00:43:12,390
was what would expose the film.

948
00:43:12,390 --> 00:43:15,279
And he would shoot that, then
he would rewind the film.

949
00:43:15,279 --> 00:43:17,570
And then, if he were over in
this corner for that shot,

950
00:43:17,570 --> 00:43:19,611
then he'd move over, and
sit in the other corner.

951
00:43:19,611 --> 00:43:22,020
He'd put a new kind of tape
on the camera, film it again.

952
00:43:22,020 --> 00:43:23,680
And the film you're going
to see will show this.

953
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:25,180
And you can see,
they're all Buster.

954
00:43:28,230 --> 00:43:30,230
Again what it shows
is he's a technician.

955
00:43:30,230 --> 00:43:34,770
He's interested in the
technology of the motion

956
00:43:34,770 --> 00:43:38,050
picture camera, and what kinds
of manipulations are possible.

957
00:43:38,050 --> 00:43:40,140
He's the conductor.

958
00:43:40,140 --> 00:43:41,890
As it turns out, he's
going to also end up

959
00:43:41,890 --> 00:43:46,880
being the only person
in the audience.

960
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:49,490
And then finally, what
I've already implied

961
00:43:49,490 --> 00:43:52,130
is that Keaton's jokes
and his technical interest

962
00:43:52,130 --> 00:43:56,490
also end up making him a
metaphysician, a philosopher,

963
00:43:56,490 --> 00:43:57,450
an artist.

964
00:43:57,450 --> 00:44:00,240
Now Keaton himself could never
articulate his own ambitions

965
00:44:00,240 --> 00:44:01,010
in this way.

966
00:44:01,010 --> 00:44:04,630
If you said, Mr. Keaton, your
vision of the absurd universe

967
00:44:04,630 --> 00:44:07,420
is more complex and rich
than Jean-Paul Sartre.

968
00:44:07,420 --> 00:44:09,436
As in fact, it is incidentally.

969
00:44:09,436 --> 00:44:10,060
He would laugh.

970
00:44:10,060 --> 00:44:12,393
He wouldn't even understand
what you were talking about.

971
00:44:12,393 --> 00:44:15,350
Not only because he'd never read
Sartre, since he died before.

972
00:44:15,350 --> 00:44:19,200
He was alive live when
Sartre was alive, actually.

973
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:23,540
But the universe that he
projects has a kind of content

974
00:44:23,540 --> 00:44:26,580
or a meaning that's a
function of how intelligent he

975
00:44:26,580 --> 00:44:29,530
is about exploiting his medium,
and telling his stories,

976
00:44:29,530 --> 00:44:34,005
as if his jokes express a vision
of life, a sense of experience.

977
00:44:37,484 --> 00:44:39,650
What you're looking at is
sort of minor Keaton here,

978
00:44:39,650 --> 00:44:45,760
but it shows his
technical interest.

979
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,800
So let me explain
what I mean basically

980
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:49,780
by the multiplicity principle.

981
00:44:49,780 --> 00:44:52,450
This process of
accretion and complexity

982
00:44:52,450 --> 00:44:54,980
I've described-- at a certain
point you get to a point

983
00:44:54,980 --> 00:44:58,490
where what began as a gag or
as a mere entertainment takes

984
00:44:58,490 --> 00:45:01,020
on a density or a texture
that makes you think, wait

985
00:45:01,020 --> 00:45:03,550
a second, the vision
of experience that's

986
00:45:03,550 --> 00:45:06,770
projected in this text is
intrinsically interesting.

987
00:45:06,770 --> 00:45:10,010
That is to say, there's
an understanding of life

988
00:45:10,010 --> 00:45:11,700
that's embedded in the story.

989
00:45:11,700 --> 00:45:15,180
When you reach the point
where the text itself embodies

990
00:45:15,180 --> 00:45:16,960
some sort of
understanding of life,

991
00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:20,990
and an understanding of life
that's coherently presented,

992
00:45:20,990 --> 00:45:23,560
powerfully presented,
what you're looking at

993
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:24,890
is what I call art.

994
00:45:24,890 --> 00:45:27,520
You might just call it more
intelligent entertainment.

995
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:29,250
But this is a way
of distinguishing

996
00:45:29,250 --> 00:45:30,730
between entertainment and art.

997
00:45:30,730 --> 00:45:33,340
At which there's a
certain point at which

998
00:45:33,340 --> 00:45:35,456
entertainment becomes
so complicated

999
00:45:35,456 --> 00:45:37,080
that it's more than
mere entertainment.

1000
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:38,050
When does that occur?

1001
00:45:38,050 --> 00:45:39,950
Well, one way to
tell when it occurs

1002
00:45:39,950 --> 00:45:43,170
is to watch for I call the
multiplicity principle.

1003
00:45:43,170 --> 00:45:46,940
When events in the film
play more than one function,

1004
00:45:46,940 --> 00:45:48,960
do more than one job.

1005
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,665
When they forward the story,
but also declare for character.

1006
00:45:54,380 --> 00:45:57,450
When they make you laugh, but
also express a vision of life.

1007
00:45:57,450 --> 00:46:01,150
And at the same time are
consistent with the character's

1008
00:46:01,150 --> 00:46:02,420
psychological nature.

1009
00:46:02,420 --> 00:46:05,050
That multiplicity, that
density, that texture

1010
00:46:05,050 --> 00:46:07,950
is what we associate
with works of art.

1011
00:46:07,950 --> 00:46:10,660
A bad example would
be you are familiar,

1012
00:46:10,660 --> 00:46:12,560
I hope, with the kind
of bad soap opera

1013
00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:15,270
line in which a character
comes into something like this,

1014
00:46:15,270 --> 00:46:17,540
oh, hello, John, my
long-lost brother who

1015
00:46:17,540 --> 00:46:19,500
just got out of
the insane asylum

1016
00:46:19,500 --> 00:46:22,564
after 15 years of unfair misery.

1017
00:46:22,564 --> 00:46:23,730
What's wrong with that line?

1018
00:46:23,730 --> 00:46:24,840
Why is that a stupid line?

1019
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,396
Although we hear
them all the time.

1020
00:46:26,396 --> 00:46:27,270
What's wrong with it?

1021
00:46:27,270 --> 00:46:29,395
AUDIENCE: Sounds excessive,
and awkward exposition.

1022
00:46:29,395 --> 00:46:31,269
DAVID THORBURN: It's
very awkward exposition,

1023
00:46:31,269 --> 00:46:32,430
but why is it so awkward?

1024
00:46:32,430 --> 00:46:33,910
What makes it so awkward?

1025
00:46:33,910 --> 00:46:35,360
Its intention is clear.

1026
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,680
It wants to present
information to the audience.

1027
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:41,480
But in order to do that,
what has it violated?

1028
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,170
AUDIENCE: It ceases to
be something that follows

1029
00:46:45,170 --> 00:46:46,400
the nature of the character.

1030
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:47,920
DAVID THORBURN: It ceases
to be something that

1031
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:49,170
honors the character's nature.

1032
00:46:49,170 --> 00:46:49,900
Exactly right.

1033
00:46:49,900 --> 00:46:50,983
That's a very good answer.

1034
00:46:50,983 --> 00:46:52,300
What's your name?

1035
00:46:52,300 --> 00:46:53,050
AUDIENCE: Michael.

1036
00:46:53,050 --> 00:46:53,340
DAVID THORBURN: Michael.

1037
00:46:53,340 --> 00:46:54,006
Thanks, Michael.

1038
00:46:54,006 --> 00:46:56,109
That's very good.

1039
00:46:56,109 --> 00:46:57,900
I want to give information
to the audience.

1040
00:46:57,900 --> 00:47:00,025
In order to do that I'll
compromise the character's

1041
00:47:00,025 --> 00:47:02,180
basic nature.

1042
00:47:02,180 --> 00:47:04,990
No sister talking to a brother
would recount the brother's

1043
00:47:04,990 --> 00:47:06,270
history to the brother.

1044
00:47:06,270 --> 00:47:07,550
That just wouldn't happen.

1045
00:47:07,550 --> 00:47:09,920
So in order to
accomplish one task,

1046
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:12,160
the text has compromised
itself on another task.

1047
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:16,180
But imagine a story in which
this information emerges

1048
00:47:16,180 --> 00:47:17,490
in dramatic ways.

1049
00:47:17,490 --> 00:47:20,235
Two characters are talking,
and Mary says to John,

1050
00:47:20,235 --> 00:47:22,360
oh, John, my brother's
coming back from the asylum.

1051
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:23,690
And she says, really?

1052
00:47:23,690 --> 00:47:25,410
I didn't even know
he was in the asylum.

1053
00:47:25,410 --> 00:47:26,750
And Mary pulls back
and says, I don't

1054
00:47:26,750 --> 00:47:27,690
know if I should tell you.

1055
00:47:27,690 --> 00:47:28,190
OK.

1056
00:47:28,190 --> 00:47:31,840
So we have a dramatic
scene, in which

1057
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,510
the information that the
audience is supposed to have

1058
00:47:34,510 --> 00:47:36,370
is presented in a way
that maybe tells us

1059
00:47:36,370 --> 00:47:37,850
something about Mary's nature.

1060
00:47:37,850 --> 00:47:40,210
And maybe tells us something
about John's nature.

1061
00:47:40,210 --> 00:47:42,160
That is multiplicity.

1062
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,450
That's what I mean by the
multiplicity principle.

1063
00:47:44,450 --> 00:47:46,630
You will see many,
many instances

1064
00:47:46,630 --> 00:47:49,360
of what I'm calling the
multiplicity principle

1065
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:50,840
in Keaton's work.

1066
00:47:50,840 --> 00:47:57,270
And you will especially see it
in these astonishing, repeated

1067
00:47:57,270 --> 00:48:04,040
sequences, and I'm talking now
in a way about The General,

1068
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:05,960
in which we see the Keaton hero.

1069
00:48:05,960 --> 00:48:09,750
Who sort of is steadfast
but also a muddler.

1070
00:48:09,750 --> 00:48:11,465
He keeps doing the same things.

1071
00:48:11,465 --> 00:48:13,090
They're not really
likely to help them.

1072
00:48:13,090 --> 00:48:16,490
And then, he gets
help from the outside.

1073
00:48:16,490 --> 00:48:22,100
Keaton's jokes repeatedly
depend upon the idea of accident

1074
00:48:22,100 --> 00:48:22,840
in a certain way.

1075
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,300
And I'll come back
to that in a second.

1076
00:48:26,300 --> 00:48:29,010
So think about the multiplicity
principle, the difference

1077
00:48:29,010 --> 00:48:30,440
between entertainment and art.

1078
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:32,620
Again this is a principle
I'll come back to, and try

1079
00:48:32,620 --> 00:48:36,820
to illustrate with greater
concreteness and greater

1080
00:48:36,820 --> 00:48:38,430
leisure in later lectures.

1081
00:48:38,430 --> 00:48:41,220
But I want you to be
aware of these issues.

1082
00:48:41,220 --> 00:48:44,020
So The General can be understood
as a kind of culminating text

1083
00:48:44,020 --> 00:48:45,350
in at least two ways.

1084
00:48:45,350 --> 00:48:47,460
It's a culmination
of Keaton's career.

1085
00:48:47,460 --> 00:48:49,620
That is to say the
jokes and gags that

1086
00:48:49,620 --> 00:48:54,920
are enacted in the film recall
many earlier Keaton films.

1087
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:57,200
And the basic character
of The General

1088
00:48:57,200 --> 00:48:59,810
is the basic character
of the Keaton hero.

1089
00:48:59,810 --> 00:49:02,650
A steadfast,
unremarkable young man

1090
00:49:02,650 --> 00:49:06,170
who perseveres in the face
of catastrophic difficulties

1091
00:49:06,170 --> 00:49:10,490
with mostly comic expectations,
very small expectations

1092
00:49:10,490 --> 00:49:11,430
of success.

1093
00:49:11,430 --> 00:49:16,970
Who often models through
almost despite himself.

1094
00:49:16,970 --> 00:49:19,170
But I say, almost
despite himself.

1095
00:49:19,170 --> 00:49:21,780
And this is where the complexity
of Keaton's vision of life

1096
00:49:21,780 --> 00:49:22,280
comes in.

1097
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,750
Why I'm saying that Keaton moves
from being merely a jokester,

1098
00:49:25,750 --> 00:49:27,730
or being merely a
great entertainer,

1099
00:49:27,730 --> 00:49:28,720
to being an artist.

1100
00:49:28,720 --> 00:49:31,810
His jokes embody an idea
of what experience is like,

1101
00:49:31,810 --> 00:49:35,085
and it's a very powerful,
mordant, mature idea

1102
00:49:35,085 --> 00:49:35,860
of experience.

1103
00:49:35,860 --> 00:49:38,880
Because what happens again,
and again in the small jokes,

1104
00:49:38,880 --> 00:49:40,820
the sequence jokes
in Keaton's work,

1105
00:49:40,820 --> 00:49:43,600
especially in The General,
and in the larger film, what

1106
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:47,140
happens again, and
again, is an adventure

1107
00:49:47,140 --> 00:49:50,470
in which a steadfast,
relentless, young, hero

1108
00:49:50,470 --> 00:49:53,960
does everything he can
to accomplish his goal.

1109
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:55,950
And it's obvious that
he's up against forces

1110
00:49:55,950 --> 00:49:58,240
far beyond himself,
that he could never--

1111
00:49:58,240 --> 00:50:00,780
there's an unbelievable
miss mismatch

1112
00:50:00,780 --> 00:50:05,230
between this minuscule,
tiny, figure and his powers,

1113
00:50:05,230 --> 00:50:07,720
and the forces he's
fighting against.

1114
00:50:07,720 --> 00:50:10,010
His one Keaton film
called The Navigator,

1115
00:50:10,010 --> 00:50:11,850
in which the Keaton
character-- even more

1116
00:50:11,850 --> 00:50:13,620
than with the locomotive
in The General--

1117
00:50:13,620 --> 00:50:16,260
has to navigate an ocean liner.

1118
00:50:16,260 --> 00:50:17,742
And he's alone on
the ocean liner.

1119
00:50:17,742 --> 00:50:19,950
And you see running up and
down into the engine room,

1120
00:50:19,950 --> 00:50:24,380
back up to the bridge,
running all over the ocean

1121
00:50:24,380 --> 00:50:26,820
liner in great difficulties.

1122
00:50:26,820 --> 00:50:30,360
There's a wonderful film,
late film made in 1928,

1123
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:34,010
just his last silent film
called Steamboat Bill

1124
00:50:34,010 --> 00:50:42,010
Jr. In which he dramatizes
an astonishing hurricane.

1125
00:50:42,010 --> 00:50:43,700
And a long, extended
sequence in which

1126
00:50:43,700 --> 00:50:46,210
we see him trying to
escape the hurricane,

1127
00:50:46,210 --> 00:50:49,310
trying to contend against
this natural force that's

1128
00:50:49,310 --> 00:50:50,820
so gigantic.

1129
00:50:50,820 --> 00:50:53,110
So The General is a
culmination in the sense

1130
00:50:53,110 --> 00:50:57,420
that it gives us another
version, and the richest

1131
00:50:57,420 --> 00:51:01,170
version so far of the adventures
of this kind of Keaton hero.

1132
00:51:01,170 --> 00:51:04,880
But what makes it metaphysical
or philosophically

1133
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,804
interesting is that what
this joke repeatedly does,

1134
00:51:07,804 --> 00:51:09,470
and what the structure
of the whole film

1135
00:51:09,470 --> 00:51:12,420
repeatedly says is something
like this, we get through,

1136
00:51:12,420 --> 00:51:13,470
we make it through life.

1137
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:20,870
We get through life mostly
not because of anything

1138
00:51:20,870 --> 00:51:22,550
we've done but
because of accident.

1139
00:51:22,550 --> 00:51:25,480
We live in a
contingent universe.

1140
00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:29,750
The idea of contingency is at
the heart of Keaton's jokes.

1141
00:51:29,750 --> 00:51:32,330
We could call them
jokes about contingency.

1142
00:51:32,330 --> 00:51:33,900
The word contingent
is interesting.

1143
00:51:33,900 --> 00:51:39,375
Remember it means libel,
but not certain to occur.

1144
00:51:39,375 --> 00:51:40,390
It means possible.

1145
00:51:43,430 --> 00:51:47,260
It means dependent upon,
subject to, conditioned by.

1146
00:51:47,260 --> 00:51:52,640
In law you can say that
something that is contingent

1147
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:56,190
is dependent for its effect on
something that may or may not

1148
00:51:56,190 --> 00:51:56,900
occur.

1149
00:51:56,900 --> 00:51:59,890
As in a contingent
estate or legacy.

1150
00:51:59,890 --> 00:52:03,030
In logic, the same thing,
dependent upon some condition,

1151
00:52:03,030 --> 00:52:05,030
or upon the truth
of something else.

1152
00:52:05,030 --> 00:52:08,010
Not true a priori,
not necessary.

1153
00:52:08,010 --> 00:52:09,850
So what Keaton's
jokes constantly do

1154
00:52:09,850 --> 00:52:11,090
is they show us two things.

1155
00:52:11,090 --> 00:52:13,840
They show us a world in
which human agency matters.

1156
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:15,730
Because if this
should schmendrick

1157
00:52:15,730 --> 00:52:21,400
didn't keep-- that's a
Jewish word for schlemazel,

1158
00:52:21,400 --> 00:52:27,930
clown-- If this schmendrick
did not keep on so steadfastly,

1159
00:52:27,930 --> 00:52:28,850
he wouldn't survive.

1160
00:52:28,850 --> 00:52:30,710
But he's keeping on
so steadfastly still

1161
00:52:30,710 --> 00:52:32,550
wouldn't make him
survive if there weren't

1162
00:52:32,550 --> 00:52:34,850
the intervention of
mere accidents, stuff

1163
00:52:34,850 --> 00:52:36,310
he has no control over.

1164
00:52:36,310 --> 00:52:39,890
This one magnificent moment
in One Week, for example,

1165
00:52:39,890 --> 00:52:43,670
where he's standing at a certain
place, and the house behind him

1166
00:52:43,670 --> 00:52:44,970
falls down.

1167
00:52:44,970 --> 00:52:46,550
And he's happens,
just by accident,

1168
00:52:46,550 --> 00:52:49,387
to be standing by the open
window, and the house falls,

1169
00:52:49,387 --> 00:52:50,345
so he doesn't get hurt.

1170
00:52:50,345 --> 00:52:52,441
He used this joke more
than once in other films

1171
00:52:52,441 --> 00:52:53,690
because it's such a great one.

1172
00:52:53,690 --> 00:52:55,106
But it's a perfect
example of what

1173
00:52:55,106 --> 00:52:58,070
I mean, a partial
example of what I mean.

1174
00:52:58,070 --> 00:53:00,710
Because he is not responsible
for the fact that he escaped.

1175
00:53:00,710 --> 00:53:02,300
On the other hand,
because he was

1176
00:53:02,300 --> 00:53:04,570
trying to get away
from difficulties,

1177
00:53:04,570 --> 00:53:06,440
maybe he was in that
particular position

1178
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:10,180
because of acts of his own.

1179
00:53:10,180 --> 00:53:12,222
So what this joke and
vision says about the world

1180
00:53:12,222 --> 00:53:13,263
is something that's true.

1181
00:53:13,263 --> 00:53:14,870
We all love the idea
that we've gotten

1182
00:53:14,870 --> 00:53:18,540
to where we are by our own acts,
by our own conscious control.

1183
00:53:18,540 --> 00:53:20,450
The truth of the
matter is that life is

1184
00:53:20,450 --> 00:53:22,230
much more contingent than that.

1185
00:53:22,230 --> 00:53:24,060
It's partly accident,
it's partly luck.

1186
00:53:24,060 --> 00:53:25,750
And something deeper than that.

1187
00:53:25,750 --> 00:53:27,270
Keaton's vision
of the universe is

1188
00:53:27,270 --> 00:53:30,670
one which suggests that while
the universe may screw you up

1189
00:53:30,670 --> 00:53:33,550
sometimes, it won't
always do that.

1190
00:53:33,550 --> 00:53:37,040
The universe in Keaton's
world is not angry at us,

1191
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:38,510
it's indifferent to us.

1192
00:53:38,510 --> 00:53:40,370
It doesn't give a damn about us.

1193
00:53:40,370 --> 00:53:41,510
It's not aware of us.

1194
00:53:41,510 --> 00:53:43,480
It's too big for us.

1195
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:45,340
You can't come away
from Keaton's films

1196
00:53:45,340 --> 00:53:49,090
without a simultaneous sense on
the importance of human action,

1197
00:53:49,090 --> 00:53:50,150
of human agency.

1198
00:53:50,150 --> 00:53:53,370
But also of the inadequacy
of human agency.

1199
00:53:53,370 --> 00:53:57,430
Of how contingent every
experience, every adventure,

1200
00:53:57,430 --> 00:53:59,060
every personality is.

1201
00:53:59,060 --> 00:54:02,510
And that and that meaning,
that idea of the world

1202
00:54:02,510 --> 00:54:05,045
is a profound one, I think.

1203
00:54:05,045 --> 00:54:07,180
So that even though
Keaton is telling a joke,

1204
00:54:07,180 --> 00:54:11,620
embedded in the joke is a kind
of interpretation of life.

1205
00:54:11,620 --> 00:54:16,140
And embedded in the film is a
kind of interpretation of life.

1206
00:54:16,140 --> 00:54:17,700
When you're looking
at The General,

1207
00:54:17,700 --> 00:54:20,759
I think you will see multiple
examples of this kind of thing.

1208
00:54:20,759 --> 00:54:23,050
Let me say one last thing,
I haven't mentioned anything

1209
00:54:23,050 --> 00:54:25,500
about the structure of the film,
I'm a little out of the way

1210
00:54:25,500 --> 00:54:26,000
there.

1211
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:27,910
Watch how the film
is structured.

1212
00:54:27,910 --> 00:54:30,140
It's a much more
complex variation

1213
00:54:30,140 --> 00:54:32,410
on what I said about
Lonedale Operator.

1214
00:54:32,410 --> 00:54:35,309
The film begins with
him going up the track.

1215
00:54:35,309 --> 00:54:36,850
And then, the second
half of the film

1216
00:54:36,850 --> 00:54:38,380
has him going back
down the track.

1217
00:54:38,380 --> 00:54:40,400
You may not be aware
of it, but actually

1218
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:43,515
the film in a certain sense
has its tail its mouth.

1219
00:54:43,515 --> 00:54:45,890
When he goes up the track, he
has a series of adventures.

1220
00:54:45,890 --> 00:54:48,030
When he comes back
down, he has a series

1221
00:54:48,030 --> 00:54:50,884
of adventures that in a
certain sense replicate what's

1222
00:54:50,884 --> 00:54:51,550
happened before.

1223
00:54:51,550 --> 00:54:55,700
The film mirrors itself
in a way, repeats itself.

1224
00:54:55,700 --> 00:54:58,740
It's incredibly
elegant structure.

1225
00:54:58,740 --> 00:55:00,300
And the elegance
of the structure

1226
00:55:00,300 --> 00:55:04,950
reminds us also--
its own way, also

1227
00:55:04,950 --> 00:55:07,730
reminds us of this
principle of contingency

1228
00:55:07,730 --> 00:55:10,560
that's at the heart of
Keaton's vision of the world.

1229
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:13,490
Let me conclude by reminding
you again what I said earlier.

1230
00:55:13,490 --> 00:55:15,590
When I call Keaton
a philosopher,

1231
00:55:15,590 --> 00:55:18,850
and a metaphysician and a
wise person about the world,

1232
00:55:18,850 --> 00:55:21,570
I do not at all mean
to suggest that if ask

1233
00:55:21,570 --> 00:55:24,190
Keaton to explain how we
thought about the world

1234
00:55:24,190 --> 00:55:24,970
he could do this.

1235
00:55:24,970 --> 00:55:26,750
That that's the
job of professors

1236
00:55:26,750 --> 00:55:28,967
and literary and film critics.

1237
00:55:28,967 --> 00:55:30,550
What I'm saying to
you is that Keaton,

1238
00:55:30,550 --> 00:55:33,000
like many great artists,
had an intuitive

1239
00:55:33,000 --> 00:55:34,410
understanding of the world.

1240
00:55:34,410 --> 00:55:36,980
Which he expressed with
greater, and greater complexity

1241
00:55:36,980 --> 00:55:39,030
in the medium of the cinema.

1242
00:55:39,030 --> 00:55:41,675
And in The General, we
have what is ultimately

1243
00:55:41,675 --> 00:55:44,000
a culminating instance of that.

1244
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:47,110
One last point about the film
as a culminating example.

1245
00:55:47,110 --> 00:55:50,160
It's not just the culmination
of Keaton's career.

1246
00:55:50,160 --> 00:55:54,400
It's a culmination of
silent film as a whole.

1247
00:55:54,400 --> 00:55:56,190
Keaton would have
expected his audience

1248
00:55:56,190 --> 00:55:58,430
to recognize the degree
to which this film was

1249
00:55:58,430 --> 00:56:01,820
a parity or a mockery of
famous historical films made

1250
00:56:01,820 --> 00:56:03,220
by D.W. Griffith.

1251
00:56:03,220 --> 00:56:07,220
It puts down the pretentiousness
and the martial valor

1252
00:56:07,220 --> 00:56:10,480
that's celebrated in so many
of the historical spectacles

1253
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:12,690
that Griffith and
other serious directors

1254
00:56:12,690 --> 00:56:15,527
were making at the time.

1255
00:56:15,527 --> 00:56:17,110
And it also goes
back in a certain way

1256
00:56:17,110 --> 00:56:18,193
to the very roots of film.

1257
00:56:18,193 --> 00:56:21,230
What was the very
first narrative film?

1258
00:56:21,230 --> 00:56:24,430
Or one of the very first?

1259
00:56:24,430 --> 00:56:27,490
Also a film about
a train robbery,

1260
00:56:27,490 --> 00:56:28,850
called The Great Train Robbery.

1261
00:56:28,850 --> 00:56:30,350
Well, this is about
a train robbery, too.

1262
00:56:30,350 --> 00:56:32,225
And who is the central
character in this one?

1263
00:56:32,225 --> 00:56:34,770
Really, a train is
the central object,

1264
00:56:34,770 --> 00:56:36,810
the central-- more
interesting in some

1265
00:56:36,810 --> 00:56:38,570
ways than the character himself.

1266
00:56:38,570 --> 00:56:42,230
And there are many other ways
in which the particular features

1267
00:56:42,230 --> 00:56:46,500
of the general allude to,
and in some sense summarize,

1268
00:56:46,500 --> 00:56:47,960
the history of silent film.

1269
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:50,380
And all of the original audience
coming to see The General

1270
00:56:50,380 --> 00:56:52,824
would have been, of course
alert to these connections.

1271
00:56:52,824 --> 00:56:54,740
Would have been literate
in these connections.

1272
00:56:54,740 --> 00:56:56,894
Wouldn't have needed
footnotes or professors

1273
00:56:56,894 --> 00:56:57,810
to tell them about it.

1274
00:56:57,810 --> 00:57:00,040
Because they would have
lived through the history.

1275
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,310
They would have been through
the history of the previous 20

1276
00:57:02,310 --> 00:57:02,809
years.

1277
00:57:02,809 --> 00:57:04,510
They would have seen
other Keaton films.

1278
00:57:04,510 --> 00:57:06,230
They would have
seen D.W. Griffith.

1279
00:57:06,230 --> 00:57:09,910
They would have the
history of the medium

1280
00:57:09,910 --> 00:57:11,935
of movies in their
heads when they sat down

1281
00:57:11,935 --> 00:57:12,810
to watch The General.

1282
00:57:12,810 --> 00:57:14,685
So that's another way
in which The General is

1283
00:57:14,685 --> 00:57:17,570
a profoundly culminating text.