Physical comedy

Detroit had its first major snowfall of the season. Yeah, that usually happens in December and many times in November. To have our first storm when January is about 2/3 over is rare. My exercise today was shoveling 3-4 inches off my driveway.

This storm was well predicted. So I didn’t go out today, just let it snow. Instead, I went to the Detroit Institute of Arts yesterday. I looked through the new Asian wing, which seems to have space for more art than what is actually on display.

I also went to the Detroit Film Theater to see The Great Buster a documentary about Buster Keaton. He was born in 1895 to a Vaudeville family and was part of the act at a very young age. He is best known for the comedic silent films he made in the 1920s, first films of about 30-40 minutes, then in 1925-28 feature length films. Those are considered some of the best films of the silent era and he is known as a master of physical comedy. After that he joined MGM, which was a disaster. He recovered to be featured in a few more films and was still working up to his death in 1966 at age 70.

But going yesterday meant I saw only the documentary. Today they were to also show a couple Keaton films. It would have been nice to see both the films and the documentary. So this afternoon I watched one of the films, Sherlock Jr., online. The other, Seven Chances, is also online, but will have to wait. Of course, many of his other films are also online.