Buster Keaton's Film The General

Glorious war stories have been apart of history since the beginning of time. Throughout this period the people telling them have moved from oral to written ways of passing down the stories. Beginning in the early 1900’s, these stories were able to make unto a much bigger screen. The motion picture The General, written and directed by Buster Keaton, took part in this movement by telling a war story with a humorous twist. Buster Keaton made The General one of the greatest silent films by incorporating chase, comedy, and romantic genres. Keaton’s story is about a railroad engineer, Johnnie Gray, who loves both his train and a girl named Annabelle Lee. The story is told during the times of Civil War, and is told from the perspective of Johnnie …show more content…
The first sign that this is defiantly a Keaton Buster film happens within the first few minutes of the movie. After getting off of his train, Johnnie heads over to Annabelle Lee’s house little does he realize that she is walking right behind him. Once he gets to the porch, he dusts himself off and fixes his hair just to turn around and realize the girl he was cleaning himself up for is right behind him smiling cheerfully. Keaton creates this character with the perfect amount of obvious nature to make them interesting enough to watch but intelligent enough to respect. This scene is followed with another laugh out loud moment when Annabelle Lee kisses Johnnie after he says he is going to enlist in the army. Stunned, Johnnie freezes and then walks backwards only to fall off of the porch. Here is one of first insentiences where Keaton shows the audience how smitten Johnnie is over Annabelle Lee. When Johnnie realizes that the army will not let him in he begins sizing himself up against the other guys that enlisted. Johnnie begins to stand back-to-back against a guy twice his size. This use of subtle comedic actions keeps the audience smiling entertained the entire one-hundred and seven minutes. Right after Johnnie notices his train was hijacked, he begins to franticly run after it. Of course it would have abnormal for his character not to fall while running full speed for his beloved train. …show more content…
From the beginning, it is apparent that Johnnie is in love with Annabelle Lee. The opening scene shows Johnnie looking at a picture of Annabelle Lee which is hanging up on his train. When Annabelle Lee ask him if he is going to enlist, he jumps up immediately to serve her wishes. Johnnie is devastated when Annabelle Lee tells him that they can not be together because he is not enlisted in the army. From this point on almost everything that he does is in order to win over Annabelle Lee’s approval. After he rescues her form the spies house, she confesses that Johnnie is so brave to come into the enemy’s line just for her. Instead Johnnie telling her that he did not even know she was there, he plays along in order to keep her love. In the romance part of the film, this is the turning point of their relationship. After this point, Johnnie is receiving the love he has given all along. This film is a classic underdog story. This shows not only in the main action, but also for Johnnie’s love life. In the beginning one could assume that he might never get Annabelle Lee to love him, however just as every underdog story would have it, he gets the girl and saves the people. Keaton creates a character that everyone will love due to his loyal nature and loving