He just thought it was unworthy of being his splashy debut as a solo director. He didn't think it was unworthy of being released. It's a great asterisk to have on “The High Sign" that it was his first independent film, but it was the one he chose to shelve for a year. Where do you see this fitting into his filmography? To me it feels of a piece with his other independents. “The High Sign” was the first film Keaton made as an independent filmmaker, but he held it and released other films first. But it’s just one of the many ways that Keaton was sort of embedded in my life story over the past few decades. It was just a contemporary movie-review blog. took its title from the Keaton short, but it didn't have anything specific to do with him or with silent movies. It’s a secret signal to someone, like if you're at a party and you and your spouse have a code word or gesture, like, "If you look over at me and I'm, whatever, tugging my earlobe like Carol Burnett, that means I want to leave the party.” That's a high sign. And why was it called the High Sign? I just thought that was a cool name for a site. The High Sign was the name of this pseudonymous blog that I wrote in the early 2000s that ended up turning into a career in criticism, although really it just started out as a place to not go crazy, because I had a day job that was boring and I needed some outlet for writing. Tell me about this film and your relationship to it. I wanted to start with "The High Sign,” both because it's the first independent film Keaton shot, also because its title doubles as your Twitter handle. In conversation with The Reveal, Stevens discusses four Keaton appearances from various points in his career. From its early chapters, which set the Three Keatons’ act within the context of the early 20th century child welfare movement, to its detailed look at Keaton’s successful late-life career as a live performer and in-demand TV star, Camera Man challenges simplified readings of Keaton, whether by offering a detailed account of the restaurant in which Keaton contemplated making the move to film - itself a symbol of a 20th century coming into its own - or using Keaton and Chaplin’s one film appearance together to draw a compelling contrast between the two greats’ lives and art. Slate film critic Dana Stevens’ new book Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century puts Keaton’s life and career in a cultural and historical frame of Cinemascope dimensions. The popular conception is that for Keaton ahead lay disappointment and drink, but as we’ll see below, it wasn’t that simple. From 1920 to 1928, he found great success as an independent filmmaker, then signed with MGM, a deal that coincided with the coming of sound. He transitioned from stage to screen just in time to become one of the great comic actors of the silent era, combining a stone-faced expression with an unusual gift for crafting elaborate (and often dangerous) comedic set pieces. Born in 1895, Keaton became a vaudeville star as a child as part of the family vaudeville act the Three Keatons. It’s easy to learn a few facts about Buster Keaton and think you know the whole story.
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