The General - Jen Peaslee

I truly was not expecting The General to be a very impressive film (and so I was really pleasantly surprised). The sophistication of the shots, paired with the comedy in general, was fantastic. It was much more advanced than I imagined the film would be.

The shot that definitely stood out the most to me was when we got a close-up on Keaton and his glorious "stone face" after he thinks he got the boxcar out of his way and it reappears (and a few seconds later, when pretty much the opposite happens). That combined with the fact that we could see how his plan was failing, and he could not, really built upon the comedy of that particular situation beautifully. The close-up shots were used pretty sparingly, but when they were used, they were gold.

I really admired the long shots as well, particularly for how they were used to set up the time period of the film. It's a bit odd to compare this film to The Great Train Robbery, which was a fine enough film, particularly for the time, but nothing compared to The General. The shots were more sophisticated, as was the editing, and there wasn't as much need for "overacting" in The General.

Interestingly, I read on Wikipedia that the film did terribly at the box office. People didn't even think it was funny!