Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and screenwriter James Agee calls the silent period of the Twenties “Comedy’s Golden Era.” Indeed it is difficult to argue with Agee, as he cites some of film history’s greatest comedic figures, such as Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. Buster Keaton, however, is a filmmaker that absorbs himself within the actual medium of film to an infinitely greater degree than his contemporaries. As seen in The Cameraman (1928), a film Keaton starred in and unofficially co-directed he places a greater importance on cinematographic properties such as the mise-en-scene and camera movement than his fellow filmmakers. Keaton also weaves his slapstick and sight gags into the narrative of the film to create complex and thematic works. Keaton is, in fact, the most sophisticated overall filmmaker working in the genre of silent comedy.
