***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS***
"Day Dreams" is the bitterest and most disenchanted Buster Keaton film... which is saying a great deal about this most embittered and darkest of all comedians. "Day Dreams" climaxes with one of the most famous gags in the Keaton canon, and fades out on a final image of stark futility worthy of Samuel Beckett. It's also hilarious.
"Day Dreams" is a nightmare in three-quarter time, with a plot line employing a three-beat structure. Small-town Buster has gone to seek his fame and fortune in New York City, from where he sends letters home to his girlfriend (Renée Adorée). Most of the film relies on this three-beat cycle: #1) We read an extract of a letter from Buster to his girlfriend. #2) We see the girlfriend's visualisation of how well Buster is doing in the city. #3) The bitter payoff shows the grim reality of Buster's ill fortunes. Then the cycle starts again with the next letter.
For instance, Buster writes to Renée that he's "cleaning up on Wall Street". We see how she visualises him as a high-powered stockbroker, wrangling yards of tickertape and making million-dollar deals. Then we see the darker reality: Buster is actually a street sweeper in the financial district ... yes, he's cleaning up on Wall Street.
Buster's next letter tells his girl that he's taken up a medical career. She imagines him in a gleaming operating theatre, performing life-and-death surgery. In fact, Buster is a vet's assistant, tending sick animals. Next, Buster writes to his girl that he's become an actor. Here we see a truly impressive sequence, as Renee visualises Buster onstage as Hamlet, clutching Yorick's skull and emoting to a packed house in a swank theatre. Now the reality shows us a much more downmarket theatre, where a Roman epic is onstage: Buster is an anonymous spear-carrier in a long row of spear-carriers. He stands out only because he's the shortest in the line, and he manages to wreck the production with his own incompetence.
SPOILERS COMING. At the climax of the film, the cops are after Buster. He flees to the waterfront ... where a ferry is under way, several feet from the wharf. With the police on his heels, Buster takes a mighty leap. He hurdles the gap, lands safely on the deck of the outgoing ferry, and turns round to thumb his nose at the cops on the dock ... only to discover that the ferry is actually heading INTO the harbour! The fade-out gag is brilliant. Fleeing from the police, Buster ends up inside the paddlewheel of a steamer. When the ship gets under way, the wheel starts to revolve ... with Buster inside it, like a hamster in an exercise wheel. Buster stoically keeps pace with the wheel, striding forward clockwise while the wheel churns anti-clockwise. But now the wheel moves faster and faster, and Buster is forced to keep running while revolving like a modern Ixion in Hades. Finally he trips and falls, sinking below the surface ... but the spinning wheel has caught him now, and Buster is lifted and dunked, lifted and dunked, into the water and out again, over and over. Big wheel keeps on turning. It's a truly Beckettian fate, leaving Buster in a water-logged limbo: constantly moving yet never getting anywhere. Frightening and yet hilarious. "Day Dreams" deserves to be in the top 10 list of Keaton's greatest films. My rating: 10 out of 10.
"Day Dreams" is the bitterest and most disenchanted Buster Keaton film... which is saying a great deal about this most embittered and darkest of all comedians. "Day Dreams" climaxes with one of the most famous gags in the Keaton canon, and fades out on a final image of stark futility worthy of Samuel Beckett. It's also hilarious.
"Day Dreams" is a nightmare in three-quarter time, with a plot line employing a three-beat structure. Small-town Buster has gone to seek his fame and fortune in New York City, from where he sends letters home to his girlfriend (Renée Adorée). Most of the film relies on this three-beat cycle: #1) We read an extract of a letter from Buster to his girlfriend. #2) We see the girlfriend's visualisation of how well Buster is doing in the city. #3) The bitter payoff shows the grim reality of Buster's ill fortunes. Then the cycle starts again with the next letter.
For instance, Buster writes to Renée that he's "cleaning up on Wall Street". We see how she visualises him as a high-powered stockbroker, wrangling yards of tickertape and making million-dollar deals. Then we see the darker reality: Buster is actually a street sweeper in the financial district ... yes, he's cleaning up on Wall Street.
Buster's next letter tells his girl that he's taken up a medical career. She imagines him in a gleaming operating theatre, performing life-and-death surgery. In fact, Buster is a vet's assistant, tending sick animals. Next, Buster writes to his girl that he's become an actor. Here we see a truly impressive sequence, as Renee visualises Buster onstage as Hamlet, clutching Yorick's skull and emoting to a packed house in a swank theatre. Now the reality shows us a much more downmarket theatre, where a Roman epic is onstage: Buster is an anonymous spear-carrier in a long row of spear-carriers. He stands out only because he's the shortest in the line, and he manages to wreck the production with his own incompetence.
SPOILERS COMING. At the climax of the film, the cops are after Buster. He flees to the waterfront ... where a ferry is under way, several feet from the wharf. With the police on his heels, Buster takes a mighty leap. He hurdles the gap, lands safely on the deck of the outgoing ferry, and turns round to thumb his nose at the cops on the dock ... only to discover that the ferry is actually heading INTO the harbour! The fade-out gag is brilliant. Fleeing from the police, Buster ends up inside the paddlewheel of a steamer. When the ship gets under way, the wheel starts to revolve ... with Buster inside it, like a hamster in an exercise wheel. Buster stoically keeps pace with the wheel, striding forward clockwise while the wheel churns anti-clockwise. But now the wheel moves faster and faster, and Buster is forced to keep running while revolving like a modern Ixion in Hades. Finally he trips and falls, sinking below the surface ... but the spinning wheel has caught him now, and Buster is lifted and dunked, lifted and dunked, into the water and out again, over and over. Big wheel keeps on turning. It's a truly Beckettian fate, leaving Buster in a water-logged limbo: constantly moving yet never getting anywhere. Frightening and yet hilarious. "Day Dreams" deserves to be in the top 10 list of Keaton's greatest films. My rating: 10 out of 10.