Buster Keaton: The Genre Of Slapstick Theatre

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Buster Keaton, a stuntman who was known for his straight-faced approach to death defying stunts that pushed comedy to the next level, changed the genre of slapstick comedy by making the stunts bigger than ever before, challenging his fellow actors to follow his lead later on in his career. Before Keaton took to the movie set he worked on mastering the simple act of falling. From birth to age twenty-one Buster performed an act with his parents that had him tumbling and teetering all over the stage and even into the audience on some occasions. He was very good at what he did, figuring out on his own that if he kept his face masked of all emotion he would earn more laughter from the viewers than if he showed he was enjoying being thrown around.

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