Haha, neither, but I like Buster Keaton more. Buster Keaton is my comfort, no lie, he’s what I watch when I direly need mood improvement.
—DiB
Keaton is really laugh-out-loud funny. He’s also a more convincingly romantic lead. And at the same time, quite an unsentimental modernist. Chaplin often appears as a cutesy angel brought down to the earthly realm. I prefer Keaton.
Why choose? Watch The General then watch City Lights. That would be a good day.
Wasn’t there a tread with the exact same topic like, just 3 days ago?
This might be the place to say that I just don’t get silent comedy. I’ve tried, believe me, but it’s rarely funny to me. I might prefer Keaton just for the craziness of his stunts, but laugh factor isn’t a factor at all.
It seems to me that the screwball comedies of the 30’s are directly linked to styles in silent comedy, but the inclusion of verbal wit reenforces the visual insanity. I guess I can laugh at pratfalls only so much.
chaplin had far better comedic timing… but keaton’s stunts are still unbelievable to this day.
Keaton was funnier, but Chaplin was more versatile. He could do more than Keaton.
Chaplin
Chaplin. I just don’t care for the music in Keaton’s films. And while I very much admire his work, his charater’s don’t connect with me the way Chaplin’s do and with Keaton I’m never lulled into that comfortable dreamlike state that I get from The Kid, The Circus or even Tillie’s Punctured Romance. I won’t argue who was the better artist or comedian but for my tastes, Chaplin’s expressive, sentimental style perfectly fits the surrealism of silent film. I also like the rogue aspect. The Little Tramp is far from an angel. He’s a conniving thief who often tries to avoid doing the right thing before his good nature compels him to it. Keaton deserves credit for making due with much smaller budgets and fewer resources available to him but the end result is that Chaplin’s movies are bigger more polished productions with a lot more going on onscreen. And then finally, it comes down to the music again. Chaplin composed great music that balances wonderfully with his romantic style. If there are Keaton movies available with alternate soundtracks, I’d love to see (and hear) them but the corny, jumpy organ music I’ve heard thus far really just takes me out of his films.
Harold Lloyd! ;-)
Did the voices tell you to say that?
Chaplin was significantly more talented than Keaton, not to mention more entertaining.
haha…same question posed during Bertolucci’s The Dreamers…
I’m going to have to pick Chaplin. He tackled a vast amount of topics, and every one of his films is memorable. While Keaton has a masterpiece or two under his hat (The General), he’s just not as good as Chaplin. I think Chaplin’s works led to the sappy, poppy movies as we know them (so that’s a vice on his part), while it takes patience for any modern viewer to watch any of Keaton’s films.
Keaton’s great, you don’t have to make any modern allowances for him. Only Keaton would have projected himself into movies (Sherlock Holmes Jr.) or had himself pursued by an army of marriage-mad women (Seven Chances). He made more than a masterpiece or two.
Start with Steamboat Bill — if you don’t love that movie and find it nonstop hilarious, I’ll be surprised. The scene with the tools in the loaf of bread is absolutely priceless.
Of course there’s nothing more subjective than funny.
Keaton.
I find Chaplin sentimental to the point of being mawkishly bathetic. And one sound came in, he could not stop himself from lecturing (Charlie, if the 90 minutes of movie didn’t make your point that 5 minute monologue ain’t gonna do it). While I find genius moments within Chaplin’s films (trying to kill Martha Raye in MONSIEUR VERDOUX, the "ballet with the globe in THE GREAT DICTATOR, the dance of the dinner roles in GOLD RUSH, etc.) his films ultimately fall apart for me.
I recently needed to watch the new Kino release of THE GENERAL sveral times for a review I was writing & my god, that thing is just seamless & without a wasted frame. Just brilliant work and brilliantly funny; I love the way Keaton punctures himself after every heroic moment, such as when he grabs the flag from the felled soldier & races to the rock pinnacle with it, only to have it turn out he’s standing on an officer crouching behind the rock. That he’s doing all his own stunts on a moving train is really impressive (and serves as a giant reprimand to CGI.)
Keaton’s sentimentality is less effusive than Chaplin’s – such as the scene in one film where he loses the girl & registers his heartbreak simply by sinking to his knees. And would Chaplin ever come close to slugging his love-object as Keaton almsot does in THE GENERAL?
And, I’m sorry, but it’s just plain funny that he never changes his facial expression no matter what.
I like Keaton better but i think Chaplin had more of an impact on film.
Mawkishly bathetic. Ha! You guys are something else.
>>You guys are something else.<<
Possibly. The question is what?
That’s that the dialogue in The Dreamers (2003). I’d preffere Chaplin
Keaton had the better comic timing.
I like Charlie Chaplin but when I saw “Sherlock Jr.” I think Ilike Buster Keaton more.
I love ’em both, both had completely different tecniques, and are both great.
Although I think that Keaton’s best films (for example, Sherlock Jr and Steamboat Bill Jr) can rival anything Chaplin has done in terms of Hilarity, Chaplin was (as he liked to put it himself) an ‘artist’. Chaplin was an auteur in the truest sense of the word- there is no other figure in popular cinema that rivals the artistic control he had over his films. Whereas Keaton signed his independence over to MGM and effectively ruined his career.
As for the better ‘star of silent film’, It could go either way. But Chaplin was much, much more than an actor.
(And for the record, Monsieur Verdox and Limelight are probably my favourite Chaplin films. By this point, Keaton’s career had been pretty much over for a long time. As Chaplin remarked- ‘I gave him work’, with a cameo in Limelight.)
Without taking sides, let me just cite the following:
From: The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968, by Andrew Sarris
“The difference between Keaton and Chaplin is the difference between poise and poetry, between the aristocrat and the tramp, between man as machine and man as angel, between the girl as a convention and the girl as an ideal, between the centripetal and the centrifugal tendencies of slapstick” (p. 62).
Oh I just love them both to bits.
I respect the bejeezus out of Chaplin, but Buster slays me. I’d add College and Battling Butler to the other Keaton films already mentioned. Strangely enough, Steamboat Bill, Jr. is my least favorite Keaton film.
>>Whereas Keaton signed his independence over to MGM and effectively ruined his career.<<
It wasn’t his decision.
Keaton was under contract to Joseph Schenk (that doesn’t look spelled properly) and that latter sold the contract to MGM.
Chaplin altho he can be awful sentimental
Joshuapm227
Who do you think is the better star of silent film?