The General (1926)

Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman's “The General”

Buster Keaton’s “The General” is a film with a simple premise. Keaton’s character, Johnnie Gray, is the engineer of the locomotive train, ‘The General’ during the Civil War. After his train gets stolen by enemy forces, he must not only track down the train, but his love interest as well. The premise is very simple. But what Keaton is able to do with that simple premise is where the real magic comes in. Johnnie Gray chases after his stolen train while conducting another train in pursuit. He chases after it, sneaks into the enemy’s camp to get his love and the train back, and is chased back the other way. And the trains themselves can only move along the tracks they are on. However, Keaton makes the most out of this simple concept. The creative problems that his character must overcome throughout the chases is the most exciting element of the film. (This also mirrors the create challenges that Keaton himself had to overcome with the simple premise and simple concept of a train chase). The viewer watches as Johnnie Gray comes across obstacle after obstacle to overcome, like removing wood from the track, getting around a left-behind train car, trying to fire his cannons at the moving train, and evading everything else they throw his way. He also must come up with creative ways to combat their pursuit on the way back as well. 

As far as the character of Johnnie Gray is concerned, his arc is simple as well, yet crucial. Johnnie starts off the film trying to win the affections of his love interest, Annabelle. Once the war starts, she expects him to be like her brothers and enlist in the armed forces. He tries to, but is rejected (because they feel like he is far more of an asset as an engineer than a soldier. However, they do not tell him this). Annabelle tells him that she will not speak to him again unless he is in uniform. This informs his character. Johnnie feels that he must prove his worth along with accepting responsibility in order to gain the respect and admiration he desires. The chasing down of his stolen train and his stolen love interest is the test required to prove his abilities to overcome and problem solve. He accepts the responsibility of rescuing the two, and continuously works out ways to creatively solve this problem. Once he has accomplished this goal, he is given the uniform of a lieutenant. He has now proven his worth and his ability to overcome challenge and accept responsibly.

Camerawork:

Extreme Wide: After Johnnie crosses the bridge with his rescued train back to their camp, he is followed by an army of enemy soldiers. The following sequences show the two sides competing in warfare. Most of the film is spent in the tiny confinement of both the train conductor room and the squeezed room of the limited train track. However, Keaton really opens up the film when the ending battle ensues. His camera goes to extreme wide shot to cover the scope of the battle. The extreme wide shot is not meant to display the intimacy of war, but rather its encompassing scope. Up until this point, the stakes were far more intimate and only pertained to Johnny, as he was the one who was rescuing his train and Annabelle. The stakes were his alone. Now however, the stakes have become much grander. The stakes now belong to everyone. Where once it was Johnny who had to grow and accept responsibility, it is now up to everyone to do the same as well. These extreme wide shot help Keaton convey this epic scale and scope.

Figurehead Shot: The shot of Johnnie hoisting the confederate flag is meant to further elaborate the notions of responsibility mentioned above. Because Johnnie accepted the responsibility and creatively participated in the solving of dangerous problems, he was able to attain his goals and succeed. The entire rest of his compatriots had to step up to the task as well. Thereby, when the individual steps up to face creative challenges, he can lift up the collective.  

Best Shot:

The best shot of the film one of the famous shots in cinema history. The shot is of the train ‘Texas’ trying to cross the bridge but instead falling in. Johnnie had placed burning wood in the center of the bridge for the pursuing train. Johnnie had engineered a creative method to solve the problem of his pursuing train catching him. However, the enemy army ignored the problem altogether. Knowing that the burning wood presented an issue, they still commanded their train engineering to push forward regardless. Unlike Johnnie, who created work-arounds and other creative solutions for the continuous interruptions to his pursuit, his enemies chose to ignore the problem. The result is the ‘Texas’ trying to cross only for the bridge to collapse and fall in. Not only is it thematically relevant, but it shows the technical scope of the production and what it was capable of. Keaton’s team did not use models or any sort of CGI (obviously), they instead collapsed a real bridge with a real moving train. The effect is splendid to watch. The culmination of all of Johnnie’s hard work as well as Keaton’s hard work had paid off and the result is one of cinema’s greatest moments.