Absolutely random and à la carte
Buster Keaton's dance: The cook's dance: Elon Musk on a China stage: Zach King's interaction
With silent films in the advent of movies in the human history, people were amazed and entertained by pictures moving (literally as motion picture with no other implications nor nuances) and the viewers were pleased and awed often just by watching a steam train arriving at a station, or running horses, barking dogs with no barking sounds on a screen. Actors’ gestures and movements in the era were also direct impositions from theatres in buildings, in tents, or from performances in open air. In addition, of course, people themselves were filmed for the first time in the history of this world as we know.
We see the early films of Charlie Chaplin. We find him in water, seemingly in a state of struggling. If you study or have studied the history of cinéma, you will know or already knew the fact that French films made their distinct marks, one of which could be characterized as with the theme of water, man, boat, and love.
The 19th century Romanticism must have lingered there? It was anyway a transitory era between theatres and movie screens as well as between graphics/photos and moving pictures, if not considering that between literature and its visualization in experimental and venturous attempts. At any event, silent films speaks to us for the unique and distinct arts which they achieved.
The image below is a screenshot from “The Love Nest” (1923: written and directed by Buster Keaton).
(courtesy: YouTube)
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My viewing history of Buster Keaton is not extensive by any standards of film lovers of any kind. However, there was a time when I had been checking out DVDs from local libraries to watch his films. A bit earlier today, I went onto YouTube to let me quickly run through several of his, which were featured or popularly viewed ones on the site. This “The Love Nest” is approximately 20 minutes. I found it very long. Or, one needs to be in certain disposition of self as a committed viewer. Or, one must have selective points to watch out and into as having planned, as if preparing a film research project. Or, one should be a commissioned film reviewer.
Nevertheless, “The Love Nest” appears to be beautiful according to my impression. I stopped my viewing at the heart breaking good-bye letter, sealed with tears to swing my eyes forward to randomly find spots which may fit more the mode of my interests for that moment. I liked the cinematography of water sceneries. Classic and historical as I mentioned above. I will go back to it to watch in full to the end. But that will be for other day, not today.
When I was on the YouTube site, there was a particular film of Buster Keaton to look for. That one was done with Fatty Arbuckle, “The Cook” (1918). Because I had certain spots and scenes I wanted to write about, I tried to view it all through. No, I couldn’t. It was unbearably long, I found. … unless one needs to be in certain disposition of self as a committed viewer.. and so on, for the rest please refer to the paragraph one up above the very previous one.
The points to be marked are at 5:00 (approx) through 6:30 (approx) for the sequence in which Buster abruptly begins to dance with a dancer on the restaurant floor. That leads to the equally empathic cook (acted by Arbuckle) in the term of abruptness, who decorates himself with an original kitchen ornamental costume to mimic an ancient Egyptian dancer, who turns out to be Salome in The Bible (from 7:50 approx). If this series of incomprehensible events cannot be described as absurd, our whole sense of the word absurdity will fall into an oublion of irresoluble subconsciousness.
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I will return to The Cook shortly, after this one:
The video clip is also from YouTube. The event was held 4 years ago in China in order for Telsa to promote.
The mark is at 1:00 (approx) when Elon Musk started his dance. In fact, I happened to view this video’s shorter version on X some time ago, so this is not my very first occasion for the encounter. At that time, I vaguely thought and wondered; well,, this made me thing of … something… but, what?
Now, I say. My mental association with randomness must have been the dancing Buster in The Cook.
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In the early silent films, there are many incessant moves as actions. I figured out why. Probably one reason was that the audience might have become suspicious of the technology utterly new to them, if no sign of rolling camera even for minutes was seen. Well, I’m just guessing.
In The Cook, a new personage enters the film at the mark around 9:00. He is an unwelcomed intruder, who brings the story to the outside scene. Or, he is chased out by the dog, more likely to say of it.
A clown/vagabond along with a dog were typical entries for the early silent film done as comedy-action. As we see, the former was elaborated to a sweet hearted man of innocence, made and played by Charlie Chaplin himself. Chaplin was also often running, chased by a policeman for example. In those days, actions and all moves in films were magics the people had never seen before.
The Cook is not a politically correct film by American social standards. So were the same for many early silent films. But, there ought to be no intentional motivations to look like so. Though that Egyptian or Babylonian dance make our verbal capacity off. Yes, it is funny. Otherwise ….. well, what? What is it and what to say of it, one must ask to oneself with or without a self-challenging attitude.
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Zach King brings a variety of absurdities in different forms into his videos. He doesn’t need nor want to prolong each clip to a 20 minutes length. For the TikTok viewers, a video of few minutes might seem too long. Speed and attention spans spin ceaseless. However, the early silent films in actions show the same trend, when the 20 minutes are dissected into twenty segments of one-minute.
Below is Zach King, chased from one scene to the other:
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In this clip, we see his favorite theme of the illusionary interactions between actors and viewers, screen and recording device, through the trompe-l’oeil of video making and acting. Yet, very classically he runs and is chased. And yet, its absurdity is contrived and subdued. Nicely done.
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The one below is also pretty much safe to say as an orthodox piece. The scene starts a joke from, well, a precious engagement ring being as big as that much big, thus so fortunate is the man in love, sanitized instantly by one push, *and* he goes onto a little pool to give the ring to his would-be-official fiancée, **but** he falls into water ***and*** pops up to the surface with that much big ring. Pretty much safe to say that’s touching. It is okay maybe to describe as having a Chaplin allusion in a TikTok form.
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If randomly continuing, I would do more to make it à la carte. Or, let me say. We all are common to see or find something we like. Universalism for humanity, would it be called, I want to say. Contestations? If so, please go up to The Cook to review to analytically elucidate your binary debates politically, you, ennemies of mine!