Book Review: Camera Man by Dana Stevens

Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century by Dana Stevens

Buster Keaton was born in 1895 to a vaudeville family who crisscrossed the country. He was integrated into the act at a very young age, often in skits where he was tossed about the stage or did a lot of tumbling and crashing. The Three Keatons were a top-billed act for a long time until the alcoholism of his father spoiled things. Buster and his mom left dad in California to seek their fortunes elsewhere. He moved to New York where he met Roscoe Arbuckle, a big star in silent film comedy who made Buster a creative partner. Buster was interested in both the technicalities of the new medium (legend has it he took apart a motion picture camera and put it back together) and the creative opportunities it provided.

Buster lived through many cultural transitions, from vaudeville to movies, from movies to television. He achieved his greatest success in the silent film era when many smaller independent studios had control over their creative output. The transition to talkies happened roughly at the same time that studios consolidated into the "big six" and most everyone, including Buster, worked at a studio to make a living. He lost his creative control and became unhappy as a fading studio star and a gag writer for others at MGM. He found renewed vigor working smaller jobs and bit parts in television, though he did have his own television variety show for a few years. The constant need for new material made it difficult. He continued to work other venues like circuses in Europe.

This biography traces out the life of Buster Keaton, looking at his development as a performer along with the developments of movies and, to a lesser extent, television. The book, while loving Keaton, does meander off into many tangents, like the sudden evaporation of female directors in early silent cinema, the romantic creepiness of Charlie Chaplin (he had a thing for teen-aged female actors), the ebbs and flows of sexism and racism in Hollywood. I found the book a little less satisfying for all the sidebar material that took over center stage. On the other hand, the writer clearly loves Buster and happily relives many creative moments and amazing scenes from his works. She seems quite honest about his foibles and hard times, though by the end his life was more happy than sad, which is how I felt finishing this book.

Mildly recommended.