Keaton's Silent Shorts: Beyond the Laughter

Chapter 9: The Goat

Chaplet' 8 The Goat (May 1921) Courlay of tbe Museum of Modem Art/ fihn Stills Archive he Goal is the "most densely textured" of Keaton's abort films thus far, weaving strands from Hard Luck, Convict 13, The Scarecrow, and One Week. l Keaton converts the amusing concept of duality from The &arecrow into a poignant look at life equaling truthluntmth, fairness/unfairness, certainty/uncertainty. The Goal is layered with these paradoxes. Buster is an innocent, 118 TheGoat a sap, a goat walking toward the clutch of Fate, then breaking into an endless run from it. Thus, The Goat has been called "one long chase from beginning to end" and typifies Buster Keaton in his most honest littlefellow 's struggle with the world yet.2 A sardonic duality is introduced by the opening title followed by its visual response: ALONG MILLIONAIRES' ROW. A small iris opens on a sign,. CITY BREAD STATION FREE BREAD, widening to a medium shot of Buster at . a window. His back is to us; the roundness of his porkpie contrasts with the rectangular window and bricks in a three-dimensional depiction of the clash/confrontation theme pervading the film. Keaton uses surprising visual perspectives to summarize Buster's situation and contrast his desperation with that ofthe hungry men nearby. Buster receives a loaf of bread through the window, but a nearby man snatches it and jerks his thumb to the offscreen end of the breadline. Hunger makes men desperate, for Buster has pushed himself ahead of the others although, curiously, no one protests until he leaves with his loaf. We have witnessed a dual reality: Buster at the head should be at the rear. This episode occurs in an ironic landscape, which Keaton will continue to fill with ironic visual gags. At a slight diagonal angle to the action, we watch Buster shuffle past fifteen men before MAX CLOTHING STORE. The next major routine at the haberdashery discloses more irony. Cutting closer to ascertain Buster's crucial position, we learn that two of the five men directly before him are Max's mannequins. Buster's repositioning had momentarily diverted us from spotting the dummies among the humans. As the men filter out, though, we realize the mix-up from our frontal view, while Buster behind them cannot see. An extreme long shot of the breadline, horizontally masked at top and bottom, exaggerates the void between Buster left and the diminishing breadline right. The time Buster impatiently spends interacting with the two dummies is marked with typical gestures: hands on hips; casually sitting, then standing at the thought of moving forward; feigning innocence when he jabs a dummy with a pin; naivete when painfully testing the pin on himself after he 'receives no reaction. This scene probes the concept of a filmed reality, and film versus reality. With masking, the illusion of greater distance enhances the ironic humor more than would an unmasked extreme long shot. Masking measures the literal and figurative distance preventing Buster from receiving the bread; it is also a sight gag through a strictly filmic technique. AddilOt TheGoat tionally, Keaton's juxtaposition of shots enhances the gags more thanjust through their composition. Structurally, the breadline gag "sandwiches" the dummy gag by starting and ending the sequence. Max's store window also frames the tableau of Buster and mannequins, emphasizing the dummy gag within the sequence and reminding us that he is being creatively duped by Fate, who is using Max as its unwitting handyman. Ironically, Buster fails to observe the mannequins, while we outside his reality can observe them clearly. Thus, Buster is "trapped" inside the window frame while being outside the store. Once Max carts the dummies in, Buster realizes his error and rushes to bridge the distance, again in a masked shot. Length is thus artificially extended, an optical illusion of distance. In a three-quarter view, the bread man closes the window just as Buster reaches him. The window boxes Buster in with its frame, stressing his aloneness and rejection. "Outsider," a trait of The High Sign character, has already been implied here by Buster's round porkpie clashing with the straight lines of "the rest of the world." Buster conveys pained frustration at the CLOSED sign as he shoves his hands in his pockets, pauses, raps on the window, pauses, and walks offright. The reality ofhunger, the irony ofso-near-yet-so-far, is poignantly revealed...