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October, 1964.

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Buster Keaton makes his last trip.

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He is sick and within a few months
he will be dead.

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It has been 30 years
since he last starred in a film
worthy of his genius.

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To earn a living, he appears
in commercials and TV shows.

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In the 1920s, he was one of the most
famous movie stars in the world.

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His films earned millions.

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They were among the funniest,
most emotional, most inventive movies
of the silent era.

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But within a few years,
by the mid-'30s, he was broke.
All washed up.

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It's a story
as old as American cinema itself -

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the artist
up against the studio system,

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a filmmaker shackled by producers
and crushed by the Hollywood machine,

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a man sinking into decay
and alcohol,

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a once-glorious star suffering
an abrupt fall from grace.

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1928.

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Buster Keaton is at the pinnacle
of his success.

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All around the world, audiences
recognise him and adore him.

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The sound of laughter resonates
through movie theatres
at the sight of his deadpan face.

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He was the man who never laughed,
nicknamed Old Stoneface.

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Topped off with a boater hat
as flat as a gramophone record,
his face was an imperturbable mirror.

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A mirror that reflects
the emotions of cinemagoers.

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Keaton had a strange beauty,
one that was both melancholic
and irremediably odd.

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He could make audiences laugh
and cry at the same time.

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He had no need to pull faces,
as actors habitually did back then.

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All it took was a tiny shift
in expression, a light in his big
eyes, or the ghost of a frown.

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Keaton never smiled
because he didn't need to.

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He had other ways of showing
he was happy.

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His body expressed his emotions.

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The way he turned around
or walked.

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When Buster Keaton was in a scene,
you couldn't take your eyes off him.
He lit up the screen.

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Buster Keaton was born on the stage.

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His parents were music hall
performers and from the age of four
he was part of the show.

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Very soon, he became the most famous
member of the troupe.

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Like a circus kid,
he learned how to perform
the most improbable stunts.

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Controlling his body was like
a sixth sense. He knew how to fall
without hurting himself,

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always avoiding landing on his neck,
spinal column, elbows or knees.

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He knew which muscles to tighten
and which to relax.
Buster could do it all.

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He was a gymnast, acrobat,
trapeze artist, dancer
and athlete rolled into one.

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It seems inconceivable now,
but he never used a stunt double.

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As well as being an actor,
he was the boldest stuntman
in the history of cinema.

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Stuntman? No, the word fails
to do him justice.

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Buster was a funambulist.

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He toyed with danger, mocked it,

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sneered at it.

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When he was shooting a movie,
Buster took horrifying,
yet carefully calculated risks.

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Nothing scared him.

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His death-defying antics
dazzled audiences.

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In Steamboat Bill Junior,
he perfectly performed a stunt
he'd already tried out in a short.

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To make the facade of a building
fall on him, he had to stand

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in exactly the right spot.
The slightest miscalculation
and he would have a broken neck.

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Buster was from another planet.

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He made the most difficult stunts
seem stunningly simple.

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While filming Three Ages,
his first feature-length movie,

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he misjudged a jump
between two buildings.

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His injuries forced him off the set
and three days of filming were lost.

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But the fall was so spectacular
that the take was used in the movie.

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Buster edited it onto another stunt
to wrap up the sequence.

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Well, my old man
was an eccentric comic.

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00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:18,680
And as soon as I could take care
of myself at all on my feet,

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he'd just start doing gags with me,
kicking me clean across the stage

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or taking me by the back of the neck
and throwing me.

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As I grew up to around 7 and 8 years
old, we were called the roughest act
ever in the history of the stage.

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In spite of his incredible talent,
Buster carried it all off
with effortless elegance.

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Despite boasting astonishing
suppleness and dexterity,

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he had a preference for playing
clumsy and awkward types.

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The man with the perfectly-toned
muscles invariably played the wimp.

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Buster was the puny weakling
forced to tackle the tough guys,

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sinister types
ready to make him suffer.

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Artists are not always
sound businessmen

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and in the early '20s Buster hooked
up with a producer, Joe Schenck.

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Schenck took care of the financial
details so that Buster could
concentrate on what he did best,

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the artistic direction of his films.

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Their arrangement meant Buster had
complete creative control
over his movies.

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He was the sole captain of the ship,
accountable for his ongoing projects
only as a courtesy.

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He was free to supervise
every aspect of production.

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He wrote, directed, starred in
and edited his movies.

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Buster called the shots,
played any part.

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At Keaton's small studio,
he surrounded himself with a band of
faithful sidemen

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on whom he tested his ideas
before shooting a movie.

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His cameraman was one of the best in
the business, while his set decorator
was a master of his craft.

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"It was a case of anything goes
and we'd try anything," he said.

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"No humourless money men told us
what to do. We alone decided

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"what a movie needed
to get a laugh out of the audience."

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Surrounded by his team,
Buster was like a skilled artisan,

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meticulous
and with total dedication.

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During a shoot,
he left himself room to improvise,

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but if he particularly liked a scene
he might spend several days
getting it right,

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and if the edited sequence did not
work as he'd hoped, he shot it again
whatever the cost.

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Thanks to his independence
and artistic freedom, his talent
was allowed to fully blossom.

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00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:29,480
Between 1920 and 1928,
he shot 19 shorts
and ten feature-length films.

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His creativity knew no bounds.

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Every film was more inventive
than the last. Buster's exploits
became more and more audacious.

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Nothing was too challenging for him.

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It turned out that the man
who almost never attended school
was a born scientist.

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Had he not been a filmmaker, he'd
have wanted to be a civil engineer.

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But more than a civil engineer,
he was above all a poetic engineer.

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In his film The Scarecrow,
Buster dreamed up a small
and very practical home

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in which every object
was dual purpose.

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The gramophone was also a gas cooker.
The bed was a piano.

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And the table allowed a meal to be
eaten without an inch of space wasted
and everything within easy reach.

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And once the meal was over,
clearing the table and washing up
was child's play.

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Buster also took a keen interest
in film technology.

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The first thing he did, even before
starting his career in movies,

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was to completely dismantle a camera
to find out how it worked.

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00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:35,520
Thereafter, he constantly sought
to use the camera in original ways.

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Throughout the 1920s,
he experimented with what was still
a new art form.

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By seeing only his comic acting
performances, it was easy
for audiences to overlook

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his most important quality -
his genius as a filmmaker.

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Buster's shots are all carefully
and perfectly composed.

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As a director, his ideas are
delightful and often disarming
in their poetry and simplicity.

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Oh, my God!

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# Happy birthday to you

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# Happy birthday to you

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# Happy birthday, dear Buster

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# Happy birthday to you. #

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I better get a whistle.

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A real steam engine. A real one.

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Buster Keaton was always fascinated
by trains.

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Old trains, trolley cars,
locomotives,

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wagons, steps and balconies.

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It sometimes seemed as though
making movies was just a big excuse
for him to play with trains.

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He liked to build
detailed reconstructions.

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He ran after trains, caught them
in mid air, climbed over them,
walked on them, straddled them,

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sat down on them wherever he could,
wherever he pleased.

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He took them to escape or to travel
far from home, unless he got himself
thrown off first.

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In 1926,
he dedicated an entire film,
The General, to his great love.

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In this movie, Buster is
a train driver trying to recover
his beloved locomotive.

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To save his true love,
he must save his train
and vice versa.

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Using his acute sense of geometry,
Keaton constructed his film in two
almost-perfectly symmetrical parts.

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Along the way, he pulled off
some of his trademark feats.

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Everything is filmed
on a moving train and always
without a stunt double.

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For the shot in which the enemy
engine is destroyed, using a model
was out of the question.

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He had a bridge constructed
over a river in Oregon
and drove a real train off it.

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These few seconds of film
cost $42,000

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the most expensive
in the history of silent film.

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The movie itself cost a total
of $750,000,
a huge budget in those days.

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The General is a masterpiece,
but it ended up overshadowing other
equally wonderful Keaton movies.

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Sherlock Junior. The Navigator.
Go West. Battling Butler.

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These films were hugely popular
with cinema audiences.

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In the mid-1920s, Buster Keaton was,
along with Charlie Chaplin
and Harold Lloyd,

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the most famous comedy actor
in the world.

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He was barely 30 years old.

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His face still had
a childlike quality.

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And his childhood often provided him
with the material for his films.

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Buster used to tell a story of how,
as a child, he was awakened
by the roar of a whirlwind.

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At the window, he was sucked outside,
thrown into the road
and carried away by the wind,

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his small body flung about
like a leaf.

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He was eventually rescued,
but he had had a narrow escape.

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Many years later, as a filmmaker,
he recreated it
in an astonishing sequence.

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To recreate the potency
of a cyclone, Buster set up
aircraft engines on the set.

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Then, as the camera filmed him,
he danced with the wind.

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In his movies, when Buster wanted
to attract a girl, he never did so
by flexing his muscles

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or showing off.

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Rather, he used infinite tenderness,

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the romanticism of the eternal lover.

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In real life,
Buster married Natalie Talmadge.

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Natalie had two sisters,
both of them movie stars.

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One was married to Joe Schenck,
Buster's producer.

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Buster had cast his wife Natalie
in his film Our Hospitality.

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Basically, the entire family
was in movies.

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Buster and Natalie had a dog
and two children.

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They lived in a huge villa
in Beverly Hills, which Buster had
constructed in 1925.

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Seven bedrooms, six servants,
with a three-room apartment above the
garage for the driver and his wife.

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Five acres of lawn,
one huge bed for Natalie,
another for Buster.

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In his spacious home,
Buster even set aside a room
in which to edit his films.

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Natalie organised the most popular
costume parties in Hollywood.

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All the big movie stars
and film producers flocked to them.

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Their lifestyle was
most unlike Keaton,

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but as a former child performer
who grew up on the road, he denied
himself nothing - nice cars,

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luxurious clothes, sports equipment.

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Buster Keaton was 32
and the world was his oyster.

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He was rich, famous
and married to a society woman.

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His films were praised
by the critics,
his private life seemed perfect.

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He even took the occasional mistress.

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Best of all, though,
he was an independent filmmaker,
answerable only to his audience.

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Buster had everything a man could
wish for. What more could he want?

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Bigger movies?
More money? More success?

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What exactly was Buster Keaton
running after?

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At the pinnacle of his success,
he made what he would later describe
as the biggest mistake of his life.

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In 1928, Joe Schenck,
Buster's brother-in-law and producer,
gave him the worst possible advice,

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urging him to sign
for the rapidly-expanding
MGM Hollywood studios.

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Buster was instinctively
against the move. He feared he'd be
swamped in such a huge structure,

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but Schenck insisted, as though
pushing Buster's head into the noose.

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Buster turned to his friend,
Charlie Chaplin, for advice.

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Chaplin told him, "Don't do it.
They'll ruin you, helping you.

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00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:45,240
"They'll warp your judgment.
You'll get tired of arguing
for things you know are right.

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"It's not that they aren't any good.
They have the best guys in the
country, but there are too many

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00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:58,840
"and they'll all want to have a say
in your movies, like too many cooks
in the same kitchen."

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In the end, Buster gave in
to the relentless pressure.

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00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,440
Closing down his small studio,
he moved in at MGM.

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The pay was good - $3,000 a week -
and he was given his own little house
inside the studio.

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The promised movie-making paradise
turned out to be hell for Buster.

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00:28:54,120 --> 00:29:00,400
In return, he had unwittingly
given up his most precious asset -
his artistic independence.

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00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:12,760
With the stroke of a pen,
Buster signed away his freedom
as a filmmaker.

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00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:18,680
His contract stipulated that he would
be consulted on storylines,
but would not have the last word.

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That would be the decision
of the MGM producer.

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00:29:35,440 --> 00:29:41,120
When Buster started working at MGM,
the studio was already a huge factory
churning out movies.

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00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:54,120
They had six studios, hundreds
of technicians and 18 press attaches
employed full-time

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to publicise their films.

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00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:04,640
MGM was also an extraordinary machine
that manufactured screen icons.

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Overnight, studio bosses could
transform an extra dreaming of glory

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into an international star.

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00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:17,880
They taught them to walk, to speak,
to dance, changed their names
and dyed their hair.

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00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:27,000
At the head of this operation,
Louis B Mayer ran the studio
with an iron fist.

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00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:35,920
He controlled the private lives
of his stars, married them off when
rumours of homosexuality took hold

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00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:40,480
in the tabloid press, exchanged
performers with other studios,

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00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:45,040
all the while jealously watching over
his child stars.

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00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:52,120
For Mayer, the key ingredients
to a successful movie were,
in order of importance,

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00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:58,160
a star, then the producer,
then the script and finally,
a long way behind, the director.

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00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:12,880
In the middle of all this bustle,
Buster was just one more star
among so many others,

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just another product promoted by
the publicity department
alongside a host of others.

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00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:38,400
I decided on a plot. We always
looked for the story first.

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00:31:42,440 --> 00:31:48,600
And the minute somebody came up
with a good start,
we jumped to the finish.

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00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:54,400
If a man gets into this situation,
how does he get out of it?

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00:31:55,640 --> 00:32:00,800
As soon as we found out how to get
out of it, then we went back
and worked on the middle.

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00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:04,840
We always figured the middle would
take care of itself.

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00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:25,000
Right from the outset, Buster saw his
working methods undermined at MGM.

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00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:29,640
Little by little,
his small band of loyal supporters
were taken away from him.

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00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:35,880
Instead he was given new technicians
to work with, studio employees
whose first priority was

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00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:42,600
to satisfy the boss and immediate
superior. The quest for technical
perfection was counterproductive.

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00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:48,400
As Buster himself said,
"No film ever became a masterpiece
only through perfect lighting

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00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,040
"or outstanding camerawork."

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00:32:55,840 --> 00:33:02,000
Worse still, MGM demanded
that Keaton write a script,
something he had never done before.

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00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:07,040
He'd always built the storyline
of his movies through discussions
with his team,

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00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:13,600
assembling everything in his head,
but at MGM there was no messing
around with screenplays.

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00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:21,080
To better oversee the work,
Louis B Mayer applied
strict division of labour.

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00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:27,320
One writer was charged with coming up
with ideas, another with writing
the story, a third the dialogue,

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00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:32,280
which was rewritten by a fourth
before the script was polished
by a fifth.

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00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,480
Rewrites could involve 36 writers
working on the same script.

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00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,800
For Buster,
this method was a disaster.

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00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:49,040
He found himself surrounded
by a gaggle of writers each striving
to impose his ideas

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00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,080
to justify his fee.

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00:33:55,840 --> 00:34:01,120
Suddenly, everybody was involved
in his job, including administrators
and producers.

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00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:07,160
All the chatter, the meetings
and the brilliant minds, Buster began
to doubt his own instincts.

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00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:17,720
The man who liked to improvise
on set now found himself forced
to stick to a script.

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00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,720
Before long, he wouldn't even be
allowed to do his own stunts,

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00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,760
probably deemed too risky
by the insurance company.

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00:34:33,200 --> 00:34:38,080
Nevertheless, Buster's first film
for MGM, The Cameraman, is a marvel,

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00:34:43,240 --> 00:34:48,120
in no small part because Buster
managed to ditch the studio's
screenplay,

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00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,800
using the circumstances
that arose on set as an excuse.

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00:34:53,720 --> 00:34:58,600
While shooting scenes in New York,
Buster was recognised by passers-by.

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00:34:58,800 --> 00:35:04,440
A crowd of onlookers gathered,
making it impossible for the film
to be shot as required.

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00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:09,680
The scene was recorded
by an amateur cameraman.

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00:35:16,920 --> 00:35:23,200
According to the carefully-worded
screenplay, nobody in New York
knows our hero.

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00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:32,320
Unable to stick to the script,
Keaton seized the opportunity
to introduce his own ideas.

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00:35:47,240 --> 00:35:53,440
MGM would not be fooled twice.
While Buster's second MGM feature,
Spite Marriage, has its moments,

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00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,080
it's no match for his best work.

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00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,400
With our early successes,

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00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:19,200
we had to get sympathy
to make any story stand up.

250
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,720
But the one thing that I made sure

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00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,320
was that I didn't ask for it.

252
00:36:29,240 --> 00:36:33,760
'If the audience wanted to feel
sorry for me, that was up to them.

253
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:36,360
'I didn't ask for it in action.'

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00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:40,080
One heart.

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00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,120
Come on in.

256
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,440
Any special page? Under the K.

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00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,640
# Come all you rounders
Gather here and there

258
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:05,880
# For a story I'm gonna tell you
about a brave engineer

259
00:37:06,080 --> 00:37:11,080
# Casey Jones
was the gentleman's name
On a 6-8 wheeler, he won his fame

260
00:37:11,240 --> 00:37:14,320
# Pulled out the station
with a big heavy train

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00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,200
# Kept on going
till he struck the main

262
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:22,120
# The man at the throttle
was Casey Jones

263
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:28,440
# Casey was a-going at a terrible
pace when 444 stared him
right in the face

264
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:34,000
# The fireman said,
"Boy, you better jump cos two
locomotives are a-going to bump!"

265
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:42,500
# Casey Jones, got another poppa
Got another poppa
on the Salt Lake Line! #

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00:37:42,500 --> 00:37:48,380
By the end of the 1920s,
Hollywood was in the throes
of a major revolution.

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Buster Keaton had nothing against
talkies. On the contrary,

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he had ideas about how to use sound
in his films.

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00:37:59,940 --> 00:38:05,980
In 1929, he even asked MGM
to shoot his film Spite Marriage
with dialogue.

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00:38:25,100 --> 00:38:30,780
The studio's reply was that
their sound equipment was primarily
for musicals and dramas,

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00:38:30,900 --> 00:38:33,220
not Keaton-type films.

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00:38:36,100 --> 00:38:42,180
When the studio finally cast him
in a talkie, it was to make him sing
in a ridiculous costume.

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00:38:42,340 --> 00:38:46,820
# Show girls, slow girls
Here's your only chance and how

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00:38:46,940 --> 00:38:50,300
# Free and easy... #

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00:38:50,500 --> 00:38:56,740
The film, Free And Easy,
made a lot of money for MGM, although
the movie is a disappointment.

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00:38:58,660 --> 00:39:04,740
Because his talkies were artistic
failures, it was long assumed
that it was the arrival of sound

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00:39:04,940 --> 00:39:10,660
that killed him.
But the studio's methods
were his real undoing.

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00:39:12,500 --> 00:39:19,940
A short from 1934 entitled Allez Oop
showed that he could use dialogue
in a very inventive way.

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00:39:22,460 --> 00:39:26,380
It's my watch that needs attention,
not me. Oh, yes.

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00:39:33,820 --> 00:39:37,060
Name, please. Paula Stevens.

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00:39:37,180 --> 00:39:39,860
Phone number? 987.

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00:39:41,980 --> 00:39:44,780
Married or single? Single.

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00:39:46,460 --> 00:39:50,860
Engaged? What has that to do
with repairing a watch?

284
00:39:51,940 --> 00:39:55,740
Oh...I thought
maybe I'd deliver it to you.

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00:40:02,220 --> 00:40:04,780
MGM clearly wasn't for him.

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00:40:04,980 --> 00:40:09,980
He found himself very much alone,
working in a system that was
over his head.

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00:40:14,900 --> 00:40:20,540
In the early 1930s,
Louis B Mayer decided to cast Keaton
alongside comic actor Jimmy Durante

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00:40:20,740 --> 00:40:26,580
in a series of films. It was
as though Buster was no longer
considered heavyweight enough

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00:40:26,780 --> 00:40:32,420
to carry a film on his own,
as though the brilliant soloist
suddenly needed help.

290
00:40:32,580 --> 00:40:36,020
It's persecution!
Unadulterated persecution!

291
00:40:36,220 --> 00:40:42,220
Jimmy Durante, which his machine-gun
delivery and outlandish style,
was the polar opposite of Buster.

292
00:40:42,380 --> 00:40:47,140
Casting two such incompatible stars
in the same movie made little sense.

293
00:40:47,260 --> 00:40:49,220
Listen to me...

294
00:40:49,380 --> 00:40:54,660
But Buster was dealing with studio
bosses who were churning out movies,

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00:40:54,820 --> 00:40:59,180
sticking to a formula that met
their manufacturing specifications.

296
00:41:00,500 --> 00:41:06,220
With Buster's very personal style
at loggerheads with
the well-oiled MGM machine,

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00:41:06,380 --> 00:41:09,260
the studio now sought
to sideline him.

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00:41:13,820 --> 00:41:19,460
Making movies is exhausting enough,
but banging your head
against a wall

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00:41:19,660 --> 00:41:25,700
when you know you're right
makes it even more so.
In the end, Buster gave up.

300
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:35,420
One could imagine the frustration,
anger and suffering of a filmmaker
stripped of his freedom.

301
00:41:39,300 --> 00:41:44,100
Within just a few short years,
Buster found himself trapped,

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00:41:44,260 --> 00:41:48,220
suffocated by a system he had
signed up to of his own free will.

303
00:41:51,900 --> 00:41:57,980
Forced to appear in films
unworthy of his talent, Buster
started drinking more and more.

304
00:42:12,460 --> 00:42:16,780
On the set of the movie
embarrassingly titled What - No Beer?

305
00:42:16,940 --> 00:42:20,820
he was drinking so much
that he went missing for a day.

306
00:42:21,020 --> 00:42:26,500
His absence brought production
to a standstill and cost MGM
a whole working day.

307
00:42:26,660 --> 00:42:30,500
In one scene in the film, you can
hear the alcohol in his voice.

308
00:42:30,660 --> 00:42:34,100
Near beer?
That's it. Near beer. No.

309
00:42:34,220 --> 00:42:36,860
But that was not all.

310
00:42:37,060 --> 00:42:42,700
Shortly afterwards,
Buster openly defied MGM tsar
Louis B Mayer himself.

311
00:42:42,860 --> 00:42:46,820
Mayer often demanded that his stars
appear in promotional films.

312
00:42:49,060 --> 00:42:53,580
Keaton, weary of these staged
assignations, refused to play ball.

313
00:42:53,740 --> 00:42:57,780
# ..in the rain
We're singing in the rain... #

314
00:42:57,980 --> 00:43:03,580
The following Monday,
he found a curt letter
on his dressing room table.

315
00:43:03,780 --> 00:43:09,420
"Your services at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Studios are no longer required."
Signed Louis B Mayer.

316
00:43:15,460 --> 00:43:20,300
Humiliated, Buster swore that he
would never set foot in MGM again.

317
00:43:32,260 --> 00:43:37,980
Having been let go by MGM,
Buster was available to work
for any of the other big studios -

318
00:43:38,140 --> 00:43:43,860
Paramount, Columbia, Warner Brothers,
Universal, Fox, RKO -

319
00:43:44,060 --> 00:43:49,900
but not one of the majors made him
an offer. Known to be an alcoholic
and difficult to work with,

320
00:43:50,020 --> 00:43:52,420
he'd become a pariah in Hollywood.

321
00:44:14,580 --> 00:44:18,900
When I was six months old,
in a small hotel,

322
00:44:19,060 --> 00:44:22,820
I fell down a full flight of stairs
to the bottom.

323
00:44:22,940 --> 00:44:25,740
I didn't cry,

324
00:44:25,860 --> 00:44:28,180
so they knew I wasn't hurt.

325
00:44:28,340 --> 00:44:32,460
And Houdini says,
"That was sure a buster,"

326
00:44:32,660 --> 00:44:38,100
meaning a fall.
And my father said, "Well,
that would be a good name for him.

327
00:44:38,220 --> 00:44:40,540
"It don't sound bad."

328
00:44:47,540 --> 00:44:51,860
In his films, Keaton had the art
of falling down to perfection.

329
00:44:52,020 --> 00:44:55,620
Since childhood, he fell
as naturally as he breathed,

330
00:44:55,820 --> 00:45:01,460
but this particular fall
would prove to be a difficult one
to get up from.

331
00:45:07,660 --> 00:45:11,580
His private life collapsed
like a house of cards.

332
00:45:11,700 --> 00:45:14,420
His wife filed for divorce.

333
00:45:15,420 --> 00:45:17,780
Buster lost everything -

334
00:45:17,940 --> 00:45:22,020
his sumptuous home in Beverly Hills,
his beautiful cars, his fortune.

335
00:45:25,660 --> 00:45:29,580
A further dagger blow was delivered
with his wife's legal application

336
00:45:29,740 --> 00:45:33,620
to have their children's surname
changed from Keaton to Talmadge.

337
00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:09,940
Keaton was drinking so much
that he ended up suffering from
delirium tremens.

338
00:46:10,100 --> 00:46:13,980
In his fevered nightmares,
driven mad by his cravings,

339
00:46:14,140 --> 00:46:19,340
he apparently saw himself attacked
by rodents and insects.

340
00:46:43,780 --> 00:46:47,700
Committed to an asylum, he was forced
to undergo shock treatment.

341
00:46:49,460 --> 00:46:53,380
Keaton was force-fed drinks
by barmen in white coats

342
00:46:53,540 --> 00:46:56,860
whose job it was to deliberately
aggravate his heartburn

343
00:46:57,020 --> 00:47:00,900
until he couldn't swallow
another drop of alcohol.

344
00:47:11,460 --> 00:47:14,980
To earn a living,
Buster took any work he could,

345
00:47:15,100 --> 00:47:17,500
appearing in low-budget shorts.

346
00:47:17,660 --> 00:47:21,340
The man who only a few years earlier
had been directing blockbusters

347
00:47:21,500 --> 00:47:25,980
was now begging to be allowed
to direct one of these small films.

348
00:47:53,060 --> 00:47:56,900
Buster Keaton was barely
40 years old. In just a few years,

349
00:47:57,060 --> 00:48:02,140
he went from being a worldwide star
to a washed-up artist with no future.

350
00:48:04,660 --> 00:48:08,620
How did it come to this for
such a giant of the movie industry?

351
00:48:08,780 --> 00:48:12,340
Hollywood is an ogre
that devours its own children.

352
00:48:16,460 --> 00:48:21,380
In one final, ironic twist, Buster
ended up seeking a return to MGM,

353
00:48:24,860 --> 00:48:28,780
not as a director,
much less a star actor.

354
00:48:28,980 --> 00:48:34,820
He was offered a job as a gag man,
offering advice on other people's
films, uncredited,

355
00:48:34,940 --> 00:48:37,660
for the princely sum of $100 a week.

356
00:48:41,460 --> 00:48:45,700
Then, just when he reached rock
bottom, life offered him a new start.

357
00:49:06,540 --> 00:49:10,460
In 1940, Buster fell in love
with an MGM dancer.

358
00:49:26,500 --> 00:49:31,340
Eleanor Norris would stay with him
until the end of his days.

359
00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:39,780
With her help,
he emerged from a long nightmare,
like a drowned man coming up for air.

360
00:49:41,860 --> 00:49:45,180
Buster Keaton had regained
his footing.

361
00:49:48,460 --> 00:49:52,380
In the ensuing 25 years,
Keaton carried on working,

362
00:49:52,580 --> 00:49:57,420
taking supporting roles in movies,
appearing in television serials
and commercials

363
00:49:57,620 --> 00:50:02,060
that re-used the gags from his films
as a way of reviving the magic
of his youth.

364
00:50:07,180 --> 00:50:12,780
Buster Keaton became a living
imprint, the image of a golden age
of comedy,

365
00:50:12,940 --> 00:50:16,380
now looked back upon with nostalgia
and affection.

366
00:50:19,700 --> 00:50:24,620
The remorseless old beast of
Hollywood paid him one final tribute.

367
00:50:27,860 --> 00:50:31,580
In 1960, Keaton was given
an honorary Oscar,

368
00:50:31,780 --> 00:50:37,020
like a medal awarded to a general
who is being stood down
once and for all.

369
00:50:39,860 --> 00:50:43,500
Footage of the presentation
has been lost.

370
00:50:43,660 --> 00:50:48,380
His films, meanwhile, preserved on
fragile, highly-inflammable spools,

371
00:50:48,540 --> 00:50:52,180
were in danger
of disappearing altogether.

372
00:50:52,380 --> 00:50:58,140
Fortunately, thanks to a collector,
the masterpieces of Buster Keaton
have been transferred

373
00:50:58,260 --> 00:51:00,380
to more durable media.

374
00:51:00,580 --> 00:51:06,180
Some of them, of which no known copy
remained, were found in a secret
chamber behind the editing room

375
00:51:06,300 --> 00:51:08,260
of his former home.

376
00:51:11,060 --> 00:51:14,620
His re-released films found
a new audience.

377
00:51:16,460 --> 00:51:19,100
At last, his genius lived again.

378
00:51:27,900 --> 00:51:32,180
In his latter years, he was
rediscovered by a new generation
of filmmakers.

379
00:51:35,460 --> 00:51:39,980
In 1964, he appeared in a short
called The Railrodder

380
00:51:40,180 --> 00:51:45,540
in which he journeys across Canada
by railroad at high speed
in a small vehicle.

381
00:51:50,860 --> 00:51:54,820
The shoot, during which Buster
travelled by train, was filmed.

382
00:51:56,380 --> 00:52:02,020
It captures all the poetry,
simplicity and grace
of Buster Keaton.

383
00:52:17,380 --> 00:52:21,220
In February, 1966,
Buster died from lung cancer.

384
00:52:23,860 --> 00:52:27,580
In his coffin,
he clutched a rosary in one hand

385
00:52:27,780 --> 00:52:33,060
and a pack of cards in the other,
ready for either an eternity
in heaven

386
00:52:33,180 --> 00:52:35,540
or a game of cards in hell.

387
00:52:48,900 --> 00:52:54,980
Killed off artistically
30 years earlier,
his films will live on forever.