Its been a while, but Peter Bogdanovich is having a moment.
Sorry, Chaplin fans, but its true.
Bogdanovich knows as well as anyone how fickle and fleeting American moviegoers tastes can be.
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In the film, he cites Gore Vidals famous quote about The United States of Amnesia.
He turns out to be the perfect man for the job, mixing dry wit and genuine awe.
His deeply knowledgeable voiceover provides at least half of the films charm.
The other half comes from watching The Great Stone Face, Keaton himself, in action.
To a certain generation, a film about Keaton will no doubt be a tough sell.
Silent movies are cinemas overlooked stepchild.
Because Keaton possessed a modern deadpan sensibility that was decades ahead of his time.
And, inThe Great Buster,Bogdanovich has provided a brilliantly enthralling primer.
Keatons ingenuity and fearlessness as a physical comic had (and has) no equal.
His parents were Vaudeville performers, and he joined their act by wandering on stage by accident.
Keaton, the ham, just loved the laughs.
He was a one-man band and a force of nature.
But Bogdanovich smartly decides not to end on those final, maudlin, booze-soaked notes.
They are miraculous then, and they are miraculous still.A-
