Buster Keaton's The General

In the following short essay I explore two phenomena as presented in Buster Keaton's The General. I look at how the genre of slap-stick as represented in The General explores certain metaphysical questions such as the nature of causality and free will. I also draw attention to one particular scene and examine how it exemplifies how The General interacts with its audience.

It was Aristotle who claimed that what makes a good plot is not the story of the hero but the actions of the hero (Aristotle 1982, p. 53). What Aristotle doesn't mention is just who, or in this case what, the hero may be. The General, exemplifying the slapstick genre, has a train engine as a hero, perhaps even the main hero. This representation has particular metaphysical import for a number of reasons. It seems throughout the entire film that the train has a desire upon the world around it and possesses a certain power to act within this world, an ersatz free will. The General situates the main human character, played by Buster Keaton, as an object of objects, particularly an object of the train's ersatz free will. Due to this ersatz free will it seems that the train is able to direct the action, the plot, while Johnnie, Keaton's character, attempts to enact his plan upon his world.

An important feature of The General is that the human characters are completely unaware of the ersatz free will possessed by various other objects throughout the film, particularly the train. In one particular scene a member of the union army, upon witnessing that Johnnie is alone with the train, states 'there is only one man on that engine' (The General 1927). The film's audience are aware of the train's ersatz free will and are therefore aware of the union army's mistaken assessment of the situation. There may be only one man on the train but the union army are discounting the fact that the train has an ersatz free will and is subsequently person like. It is entirely possible, therefore, for the union army to become objects of the object, objects of the train.

A particular scene that I would like to highlight illustrates how the audience become participants through possessing more knowledge than the character in the film. Keaton often employs the 'long shot' and through the use of this particular shot, the cinematic frame that the audience is presented with includes more detail than is presented to the character (Carroll 1998, pp. 64-65). Towards the end of The General a particular scene unfolds whereby Johnnie is interacting with some soldiers who's task it is to fire cannons upon the enemy. Johnnie is bewildered as to why these soldiers keep dropping dead and moves about the frame erratically. The audience is aware, due to the use of the 'long shot', that there is a sniper nearby in the bushes. Due to Johnnie's erratic movements he looses control of his sword which, through an almost ersatz free will like that possessed by the train, kills the sniper.

Through the use of the slapstick genre and a detailed use of cinematic presentation The General effectively explores numerous issues relating to the natural and metaphysical worlds leaving the viewer with, in Carroll's (1998, p. 79) words, 'a heightened sense of understanding'.

References

Aristotle 1982, Poetics, Trans. James Hutton, W.W. Horton & Company, New York.

Carroll, N 1998, Interpreting the Moving Image, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne.

The General 1927, Motion Picture, Buster Keaton Productions Inc., Producers: Buster Keaton & Joseph M. Schenck.