The General - Jonathan Miley

I think the use of close-ups and long shots go a long way to giving the film both its comedy and sense of historicalness. However, the thing that caught me most about the cinematography was the use of panning shots. These were not true pans, however, because the camera was not turning on its axis, but instead the train was moving. Still, these pans are one of the things that separate The General from the shorts we watched in class because it creates a dynamic in the visuals that the shorts lacked.

Aside from the cinematography, one of the most fascinating things I found about the General was the train wreck at the end. I used an inflation calculator I found online and according to it that single shot would cost half a million dollars today. Granted that is not crazy, it is reported that one of the shots from the movie Gladiator cost over 2 million but that is still quite a sum of money. To top it off, it was a real train. This was before the days of miniatures; that is simply amazing to me that they would destroy a real train for a movie.

Another thing that caught my attention, and it caught my attention throughout the movie, was the seeming danger Buster Keaton was in through the course of the film. It seemed like he was never more than a step or two away from being run over by the train. Obviously, that is part of the comedy but it is more than that. It gives great evidence to Keaton’s athletic skill and the confidence the film crew had in him. Blue screens were not invented until the ‘30’s and there was no way that the crew could have had pulleys and cabling to support him and keep him safe. I think he would call stunt men today “wusses.”