My Classics: The General (1926)

My Classics: The General (1926)
5/5

Opening Statement: Starring one of the bigger comic actors of the time Buster Keaton. The General focuses on a young man who shares a love of his train and a woman. He may be small, be once both are messed with he has to take a stand. In this epic comical silent action flick.


Why it's Classic: Buster Keaton never was as big as the amazingly talented Charlie Chaplin, but Keaton is still amazing talented. His reflects an unusual dead pan emotion regularly but is often dragged into heroic action. It's a contradiction, but it worked. There is no dialogue in The General, it came out at the end of the silent era. The dialogue that is said is shown to us on screen, and rarely did they have it, or even need it. We are entertained the whole time throughout The General, we sympathize with our comical character and we want to see him achieve his goal.
                              After creating such a lovable character, who is funny and sweet, the writers put him into a more extreme position, as an action hero. The majority of the film follows him on the train, and he is either chasing or being chased. In a way it works as cat and mouse antics. There is a great deal of fun slapstick and the story simply has no problem with flow. The music incorporates sounds at times, which is genius, there is also a greatly gets is involved emotionally. This is an orchestra playing the perfect notes, at the perfect time.
                               All in all, The General blends action, adventure, comedy, and romance so damned well. This movie is so fantastic it is hard to find the words. It is fun for the whole family, with war violence kept to a minimum, and it surprises me how creative the whole crew behind this film is. The stunts are very risky for the actor, they are put endanger of injury, they love their job. There is also one of the most expensive stunts performed in the silent movie era in this film. Even around 90 years later I find these stunts to be eye candy. I don't like the modern CGI stuff like Transformers and The A-Team as much simply because it's not real. In The General we have real trains with actors in real danger, it looks beautiful almost like a stage play.
                            In the end, with shakespearian talent on the screen, and an impressive imagination, one of the greatest films in history was created. I loved this movie, even the modern audience would awe at it if they give it the chance. My only problem is that I get sad that there aren't many recent movies like this. Then again I doubt something like this would work for this time era.


Consensus: Perfect genre blend, fantastic, artistic performance,  beautifully enacted stunts all are shown on screen created by some of the greatest imagination in the history of film.