Sunday, March 29, 2020

Arbuckle, Lloyd, Keaton, and Chaplin

Considering the period of these scenes, I found myself chuckling from time to time. I believe that the lack of sound influenced the actors as they used extreme facial expressions to display their emotions better. Furthermore, the body movements in the scenes were much more exaggerated than what would occur in real life. I believe that this exaggeration largely contributed to the effectiveness of silent comedy. Arbuckle's scenes were focused on exaggerated facial expressions and body movements.
In contrast, the humor from Harold Lloyd's scenes was humorous due to the bizarre situations. I found myself laughing as a result of Harold being in these odd circumstances. Buster Keaton's scenes were funny because of the unexpected events that occurred in the scene. I enjoyed these scenes as I genuinely never knew what was going to happen next, and the stunts were quite humorous as well. Ultimately, I found that Charlie Chaplin was likely the best actor/comedian of this time. I felt like his scenes were more sophisticated, and the acting was much more impressive than Arbuckle, Lloyd, and Keaton.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with your comments about Keaton and his ridiculous stunts. When I was watching Keaton, I felt like I was always on the edge of my seat because I didn't know what was going to come next. I found Chaplin a little more odd than funny, but I agree that his scenes were definitely more sophisticated with more acting incorporated.

    ReplyDelete