Assignment 2: "Sherlock Jr." Comedy

The stunts and visual gags that Keaton employed in his film making for "Sherlock Dr." was pure genius and absolute beauty. There were two scenes that were so unpredictable and crazy that I could not help but laugh that the profound quality of the classic humor. One scene being when Keaton’s character leaping down from atop the building by grabbing onto a train traffic barrier and swinging down on it nonchalantly into the backseat of the antagonist’s vehicle without the driver even noticing. There is first of all something to be said about the pure creativity behind Keaton’s way of thinking with this stunt and then the execution is truly beyond me. Speaking of Keaton’s creativity, there is certainly something to say about his incredible escape from the Sheikh's “safe house” through the window. An odd circular object with a fabric of some sort inside was placed on the window frame so that when Keaton made a run for it and jumped through the window, the fabric instantly disguised him as some random street-walking stranger. It was completely unexpected and the stunt awed me with instant surprise. I believe that it’s needless to say that Keaton’s gags and stunts were entirely effective in every manner. In relation to contemporary comedy, Keaton’s works in stunts and gags match the clean innocent humor and good old fashion hilarity.

 The self-reflexive nature of Keaton’s work if tough to determine and yet it was still very real and prevalent. The only stand-out scene of Keaton’s self-reflexive technique was when he came out of himself into the dream when he fell asleep in the projection room. For me, the technique was too vague so it did not carry strong effectiveness with me.