The Great Acting Blog: “Buster Keaton’s One Week”
By his own admission, Keaton did not think of himself as an actor, largely because back then an actor was somebody who worked in the theatre with dialogue. Keaton’s art of course, was primarily physical, spending his formative years in vaudeville, then later employing the cinema to create epic gags.
Keaton though, is an example of the startling effect one man’s vision can have, once it’s been projected onto the world. Of course, in his time, it was much harder to get projects off the ground than it is now. And yet nowadays, we see less and less individualist expressions and more and more conformity. We can’t all be Buster Keaton, but the lesson is that we should believe in our personal, individual visions and develop the craft to realise them.
One Week is the first short film Keaton released and is about a husband and wife who try to build a house. It employs the pattern of vaudeville, delivering a series of gags or stunts, which build up to a final, extraordinary topper. Besides all else, it’s makes for terrific weekend viewing.
Subscribe to The Great Acting Blog
