Buster Keaton

He has left the world without ever being quite in it. Only saints and a few classic madmen have put forth a comparable power to suggest that this place where we all catch trains so deftly is yet not wholly the place for which we were made. He displayed no consternation, he uttered no protest (what does protest avail?); he gave his energies wholly to not being destroyed by a universe as implacable as an ice-pack, as pervasive as Newton’s three laws, as scrupulous as a grandfather clock. Denizens of that universe (and billions inhabit it expertly) would point out to one another that Keaton never smiled: as though it were not a serious business, to keep from being destroyed, really to triumph, never to know you have triumphed.

For it was against the nature of things that he was pitted, and you can never gloat over that adversary; you can only keep moving, only succeed in not being deprived of your mobility; that is your triumph, mobility. Chaplin’s adversaries by contrast were great static beefy malevolences, pig-eyed and generally be-whiskered, blocking off the way between Chaplin and his simple desire: a meal, a girl. Knocked on the head innumerable times, they did not succumb, but when they fell, as they did eventually always fall, it was of their own weight. The law of gravity was Chaplin’s principal ally. It was Keaton’s nemesis.

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Hugh Kenner

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He has left the world without ever being quite in it. Only saints and a few classic madmen have put forth a comparable power to suggest that this place where we all catch trains so deftly is yet not wholly the place for which we were made. He displayed no consternation, he uttered no protest (what does protest avail?); he gave his energies wholly to not being destroyed by a universe as implacable as an ice-pack, as pervasive as Newton’s three laws, as scrupulous as a grandfather clock. Denizens of that universe (and billions inhabit it expertly) would point out to one another that Keaton never smiled: as though it were not a serious business, to keep from being destroyed, really to triumph, never to know you have triumphed.

For it was against the nature of things that he was pitted, and you can never gloat over that adversary; you can only keep moving, only succeed in not being deprived of your mobility; that is your triumph, mobility. Chaplin’s adversaries by contrast were great static beefy malevolences, pig-eyed and generally be-whiskered, blocking off the way between Chaplin and his simple desire: a meal, a girl. Knocked on the head innumerable times, they did not succumb, but when they fell, as they did eventually always fall, it was of their own weight. The law of gravity was Chaplin’s principal ally. It was Keaton’s nemesis.