Comedy Incarnate_ Buster Keaton, Physica Noel Carroll

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to what is distinctive about Keaton and are anyway apt to be too solemn to
capture Keaton s levity. This is so because themes like Love Conquers All
and Man Versus Nature can be telegraphed by farces and melodramas alike.
Nevertheless, the low yield on exegetical investment afforded by the allegorical
interpretation of such genre comedies should not foreclose ventures in nar-
rative analysis. One merely needs to rethink the terms of such analysis. Instead
of concentrating on the meaning implied or presupposed by the plot, focus
may be reoriented toward questions of construction. How is the plot put
together; what makes it coherent and complete? And, furthermore, why is
that mode of construction itself humorous? I have tried to account for the
narrative unity of The General by contending that it is an exemplary case of
erotetic narration. The plot itself is funny because it is wildly, incongruously
improbable that someone as benighted and bemused as Johnnie Gray could
survive his travails, let alone triumph.
One of the many things that I have learned about film since I first wrote
on Keaton is not to underestimate the importance of narrative structure. It
is too easy to shirk this responsibility by stressing the visual nature of film, as
I once did. This appendix, then, is partial penance for my youthful arrogance.
notes
1 In an earlier article I complained that the uniform issue was not as sustained
as it might have been. Upon reviewing the film recently, I realize that I was
172 Appendix
mistaken. See: No�l Carroll, Toward a Theory of Film Suspense, in Theorizing
the Moving Image (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 115.
2 David Hume, Of Tragedy, in David Hume: Selected Essays, ed. Stephen Copley
and Andrew Edgar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 130.
3 Not all film narratives are erotetic. In some films, the connection may be
merely that of spatiotemporal contiguity. Keaton s The Playhouse, for example,
seems to be primarily a succession of routines in which the same character, Keaton,
appears. There is little to connect the content of one act to the next. Some effort
is made to secure closure through Keaton s brief romance with and then mar-
riage to the twin. But it gives every appearance of being tacked on to lend an
otherwise simple collection of vaudeville turns the impression of greater unity.
4 There is a view, advanced by Steve Seidman and Frank Krutnik, that argues that
there is a tension between the star comic s routines and the progression of the
narrative. I, like Peter Kramer, do not think that this generalization fits Keaton
very well. Especially in features such as The General virtually every gag contributes
to the narrative, either by advancing the action or by emphasizing narratively
significant character traits. See: Steve Seidman, Comedian Comedy: A Tradition in
Hollywood Film (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press, 1981);
Frank Krutnik, The Clown-Prints of Comedy, Screen, 25(4 5); Peter Kramer,
Derailing the Honeymoon Express: Comicality and Narrative Closure in
Buster Keaton s The Blacksmith, The Velvet Light Trap, 23 (Spring 1989), pp. 101 16.
5 Or they introduce material relevant to the formation of a new question or ques-
tions; see my Toward a Theory of Film Suspense.
6 Of course, some of these scripts and schemas are derived from our experience
of film-going. The expectation that if a vampire can be forced into the sunlight,
he will wither and die, is probably an event-schema that most of us have learned
from the movies.
7 It is an interesting exercise to look at the most frequently recurring dramatic
situations and to notice how they all are pregnant with possible outcomes that
incline us to regard them protentively, i.e., in terms of their future possible out-
comes. Dramatic situations in popular narratives keep us interested in them because
they wear their future possibilities on their face and we are curious as to which
of them will eventuate. In order to test this claim, the reader might take a look [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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