dinnerandashow

buster keaton kinda looks like elijah wood here

Buster Keaton, volunteer in the civilian evacuation corps during WWII

When a WIP ends on an angsty cliffhanger:

When you didn’t realize you were reading deathfic:

When you keep reading even after realizing it’s deathfic:

When you remember that embarrassing thing you said 12 years ago:

When there’s something that everyone else loves that squicks you out:

When Tumblr is full of fanwank and you have no idea what’s going on:

When someone leaves a bitchy comment on your fic:

When someone leaves a lovely comment on your fic:

When AO3 won’t let you leave more kudos:

When your favorite author posts a new fic:

When it’s 3am and your favorite author posts a new fic:

In a 1964 Kevin Brownlow interview with Buster Keaton, Brownlow questions Keaton on the seamless perfection of  “pacing” in his work. “Oh, that comes from experience… of assembling,” Keaton answers simply. “Experience?” Brownlow exclaims. “This is what I can’t understand. Your pictures, right from the start, were so technically perfect. And you say you did it by experience, but you know, this is… I’ve been in the editing business for years, and I can’t get this experience just by going into the cutting room and doing it like you did. This is something that comes from a knowledge and handling of film, but it comes after many years. But with you, you did it like this!”

It’s a satisfying climax, showing how Alfred has undergone something like a character arc in Keaton’s film as opposed to the original stage play. In the source material, Alfred gets to avoid the fight altogether. Feeling that was dramatically unsatisfying, Keaton added a confrontation between Alfred and Battling Butler. It’s natural, considering Buster’s protagonists often go from passive but plucky young men to full-fledged heroes. But here, the heroism is merely Alfred finally standing up for himself and his friends, not rescuing his girlfriend from a fate worse than death or a cow from the slaughter or something big and grand.

I don’t know; writing my feelings about this scene now make it seem like such a little thing, but I like how Alfred’s arc still allows for him to remain a refined gentleman who does not want to have to resort to violence. In the end, he walks off with a top hat, walking stick, and his boxing shorts. He can be a lover instead of a fighter, but without being a two-fisted violent, abusive jerk like Butler or a total doormat as he was before. I love this movie so much.

Battling Butler becomes a funnier, sweeter movie every time I revisit it. I actually prefer it to Seven Chances or The Navigator. Why is it so ignored in comparison? In her review of the film on IMDB, Imogen Sara Smith said, “Lacking any large-scale set-pieces, this film rests almost entirely on Buster’s performance.” In my Wordpress review of College, I asked “After all, if the similarly low-key Battling Butler had the misfortune of being made after the high point of Keaton’s magnum opus rather than before, if the places were switched, would we view College as negatively as we do?” Having revisited the film, I know think I have an answer: yep, we would still view College as a weak work. Battling Butler is a gentle film, lacking the rather bitter aftertaste of College. It is a fine romantic comedy, one that deserves more than the meager praise it has received over the decades since its release.