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| "Great Stone Face" |
SUMMARY |
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Analyzing, scene by scene, an American film from the age of silent movies entitled "The General" the author explains what constitutes the magic of the production, the staging and the acting in this masterpiece.
He underlines the American optimism inherent in it, contrasting it with the pessimism characteristic of European art and philosophy.
Much place is dedicated to the analysis of the method by which Buster Keaton creates the stage personage, thus a way of acting depending on leaving much to the imagination, suggestion rather than illustration.
The phenomenon of Buster Keaton's very economical means of expression is compared with the art of other great artist, GRETA GARBO, CHARLY CHAPLIN, HAROLD LLOYD.
Królikiewicz notices that a lack of distance towards reality creates many, very funny situations.
The author is also searching for an answer, by what means is it possible for the action of history and the action of the locomotive to becomplementary in a paradoxical way. The author investigates the relation between Keaton and war, Keaton and work on the railroad, Keaton and his fiancee treating them as life's universal axis.
The author ponders over the asthetic and structural nature of the function of Buster Keaton's "stone face".
He illustrates in what way this story, striped of pathos, about locomotive engineer named General entwined in the course of the civil war, grafts into people belief in themselves, in their dignity, giving us a sense of freedom.
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