Buster Keaton and the Near-Miss Gag

buster keaton's most spectacular gag—and surely one of the most dangerous movie stunts ever executed—was staged in 1927 toward the end of production of his last independent feature film, Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928). As we see it in the film, Buster is standing in front of a two-story house during a violent windstorm, and the whole front of the house comes loose and falls forward. Buster, who is facing away from the house, does not see it coming, but we do. As it crashes to the ground, we see that a small attic window falls right over the spot where Buster is standing, saving his life. What made this gag so dangerous was that the facade of the house weighed about two tons, having been constructed to fall without bending. It was shot in one take, a long shot, and it appears in the film intact, with no editing. Keaton really stood there, and the front of the house really fell. The clearance around his head and shoulders was about two inches.¹

After describing this gag in his book The Theatre and Cinema of Buster Keaton, Robert Knopf considers the perplexing question it raises: "In this shot, Keaton far exceeds any reasonable demands for realism. . . . He easily could have constructed the same scene through editing. . . . Yet Keaton risked his life. . . . Why?" (101).

In addressing Knopf's question, this article draws upon and extends his insightful discussion of Keaton's comedy, especially gags such as this one. Knopf explains the falling facade gag as a continuation of Keaton's practice of doing his own stunts and filming them in such a way—using long, uncut takes—that the viewers have no doubt about their authenticity and about Keaton's bravery in undertaking them. He also notes that a long-running visual motif throughout many of Keaton's films shows Buster passing through windows and doors (Knopf 100–01). He discusses these traits in the context of vaudeville traditions that Keaton adapted to the new possibilities offered by film.

By way of extending Knopf's explanation, this article focuses on a pattern in the structure of certain gags that are characterized by a "near miss." The facade gag is the most striking example, but there are numerous other instances of this pattern, especially in Keaton's feature films. Evidence suggests that Keaton developed this pattern as the solution to an artistic problem that arose when he transitioned from making two-reel films to making features. The problem arose because of Keaton's commitment to two principles of comedy that would occasionally come into conflict with each other. One principle is that the clown never dies—that the comic hero should always revive following deadly blows, falls, or similar lethal events. The other principle, which he articulated in numerous interviews, is that in his feature films, he should no longer use "impossible" gags because audiences expected "realism." Evidence from interviews and from his films suggests that Keaton developed the near-miss gag as a way to reconcile these two sometimes-contradictory principles.

Figures 1A and 1B.

A near-miss gag from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928).

The Clown Never Dies

The first principle noted previously—the destruction-and-revival pattern of traditional clowning—may best be understood in the context of comedy's historical theme of renewal. Kathleen Rowe, in discussing romantic comedy in film, cites Northrop Frye's analysis of the role of archetype and myth as the foundation for the death-and-rebirth motifs found in comedy and romance. She treats the renewal theme as one of the primary characteristics of comedy and credits Frye with the fundamental insight that "all narrative reworks a common story . . . of birth, death, and rebirth" (Rowe 107). Frye's insights inform her analysis of romantic comedies such as Moonstruck, in which she finds the death-and-rebirth pattern evident in the character development of the romantic couple (202–03). Rowe's discussion of the central importance of the renewal motif in comedy illuminates Keaton's comedy as well. When...