Silent Pictures in the 1930s and "Why This Play Now?"

Whether it’s Singin’ in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard or The Artist we all know the story: silent film stars, and with them silent films, made obsolete by talking pictures, their voices or dramatic style incompatible with the new technological advancements of sound. Silent movies become a relic of the past, an archaic entertainment eclipsed by the technologically advanced “talkies” that dominated Hollywood by 1930.

If talking pictures ruled the screen in the 1930s, what happened to the silents? In his book The Last Silent Picture Show: Silent Films on American Screens in the 1930s, William M. Drew argues that in fact, there never was a last silent picture show. On the contrary, Drew asserts that the transition in the 1920s from silents to talkies was not as rapid or as ubiquitous as Hollywood makes it out to be, and that silent films still captivated audiences into the 1930s and beyond, and not just as the object of ridicule or romanticized nostalgia.[1]

Ready to find out more about silents in the 1930s? These posts will give you more historical information about silent film after the rise of talkies from Drew's book:

• Old Time Movies and Silent Revivals
• Silent Screens in the Late 30s and Beyond

Silent Film in the 30s and “Why This Play Now?”

Not only does understanding more about the marginalization of and notable attempts to revive silent films in the 1930s and beyond offer a rich historical context for our protagonist Buster Keaton in Barbarous Nights, with its setting in a 1930s of the past and of the future, but it also helps answer the question “why this play now?”

Captivated by both classic and contemporary movies about the struggle of silent film stars against the advancements of sound, modern audiences are familiar with the situation in which Buster Keaton finds himself in this play, even if the world he falls into is not a tangible one. Buster Keaton’s journey is made both more accessible and more poignant to a modern audience in part by its context within and relationship to an era of decline for silent pictures. If Buster Keaton is struggling to find what makes him human beneath his “mask” as a star of silent pictures, his journey becomes all the more challenging in a world where his celebrity identity doesn’t mean the same thing to the people he meets as it did where he came from. Keaton’s struggle to understand and express his inner self in the play is perhaps an echo of what he would have faced in 1930s Hollywood: a silent film celebrity forced to confront the man beneath his exterior identity as the world he knows is radically altered by sound.

And Buster Keaton isn’t the only one who is challenged to navigate his “performed” and inner self. Not only do the other characters in the play know his struggle, who we see grappling with expressing and reaching for their inner most desires, but we as audience members do too. We too find ourselves in circumstances where our notion of self is critically altered, where we must swallow our inner emotions to navigate through society, where we are afraid of what will happen if we express our greatest joys or deepest sorrows. We are also familiar with the ways in which technology changes our means of communication, our connections to others, and our understanding of who we are. Like a silent picture might, Barbarous Nights appeals so strongly to our emotions in part because what the characters experience in the play is so relatable.

---

[1] Drew, William M. The Last Silent Picture Show: Silent Films on American Screens in the 1930s. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, Inc, 2010. Print.

The Other Stone Face: Abraham Lincoln in "Barbarous Nights"

 

In Barbarous Nights, Abraham Lincoln plays an important, though somewhat enigmatic, part in Buster Keaton’s journey to discover his humanity. As Keaton explains to the Maiden in scene two of the first shade after she wrenches off his mask, “My face is iconic. My face is as iconic as Lincoln’s face someone once told me.” Keaton strongly identifies with Abraham Lincoln, the other “great stone face” of American history.

In Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, she describes Abraham Lincoln being photographed in 1863, a month after he gave his revered Gettysburg address:

“On Sunday, August 9, [John] Hay accompanied the president to Alexander Gardner’s photo studio at the corner of Seventh and D streets. The pictures taken that day do not reflect what Hay characterized as the president’s 'very good spirits.' Rigidly posed, with one hand on a book and the other at his waist, Lincoln was forced to endure the lengthy process of the photograph, which almost invariably produced a grim, unsmiling portrait. Subjects would be required to sit absolutely still while the photographer removed the cap from the lens to expose the picture. ‘Don’t move a muscle!’ the subject would be told, for the slightest twitch would blur the image. Moreover, since ‘contrived grinning in photographs had not yet become obligatory,’ many faces, like Lincoln’s, took on a melancholy cast.”[1]

While Lincoln’s “stone face” in photos from the era may be attributed in part to the technological limitations of the camera or cultural norms regarding smiling in pictures, whatever the reason for his serious expression, it is clear is that the images of Lincoln circulated amongst the public were not fully representative of the man known to his close colleagues, friends and family. Abraham Lincoln’s iconic “deep set gaze” that appears “steady and melancholy” in his photographs is not only a constructed image separated from his everyday self, a Presidential mask, if you will, worn for the public eye, but it is also readily apparent to anyone familiar with the arduous task of posing for a photograph (Goodwin 230).

Perhaps Lincoln and his public were more comfortable with the dual identity of the President than Buster Keaton seems to be with his own, struggling to navigate without his mask in a world where nobody seems to know who this star of silent pictures is. In this play, Lincoln not only helps a modern audience understand the level of fame Buster Keaton had achieved at the height of the silent film era, his face as iconic as Lincoln’s, but he also represents part of Keaton’s personal journey to uncover his identity beneath the “stone faced” celebrity persona. When Lincoln says to Buster, “It is impossible to see our humanity,” perhaps he is talking celebrity to celebrity, speaking of the iconic mask we recognize as “President Abraham Lincoln” and silent film star “Buster Keaton.”

Much thanks to Nathan Kinsman for his brilliant historical knowledge, thoughts, and assistance researching for this post.

---

[1] Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2005. 545. Print.

“Performative Acts and Gender Construction” in "Barbarous Nights"

Judith Butler’s theory of how performance defines gender identity is key to understanding our own exploration of identity, performance and gender in Barbarous Nights. Butler’s essay from her book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity raises many of the same universal questions as our text does about how identity is created, understood and performed by the individual, how identity is fragmented, fluid, and un-unfixed, and to what extent we have any power over both the social forces that repress and control our expressions of self and how our gender identity is established in the first place.

What is Gender?

Gender is a “stylized repetition of acts” that are performed by the body as it “actively embodies certain cultural and historical possibilities.” It is not predetermined by an “essence,” but continually materialized when we reproduce and reify the historical and social conventions that give the body meaning. In other words, gender is not an expression of biology or a concrete identity, but created by our individual everyday actions. These performances disappear because they are naturalized and seem grounded in our physical bodies.

Example: The Maiden’s constant work on her embroidery can be conceived not as an expression of her gender identity, but rather as an act that she performs in order to portray femininity that in turn defines her as female based on the cultural values attributed to the act.

How do we know what to perform?

Simone de Beauvoir said that, “the body is a historical situation.” Though each performative gender act is unique, it is based on historical “corporeal styles” that determine how gender is performed again. We are not just performing but “dramatizing and reproducing a historical situation.” We operate according to a “tacit collective agreement to perform,” meaning that while we each perform our gender individually, our behavior is limited by a set of cultural values and social rules that decide what each gender is embodied according to previous performances. “The personal is political” because we are conditioned by the social and culture structures around us, even when we act individually. These acts are rehearsed and have a ritualistic, public dimension because there are consequences when you do not comply with your given gender identity.

How is the performance of gender different than actual theatre?

When we perform our gender, the line between the performance and reality becomes indistinguishable, naturalizing the gender performance while also calling reality into question altogether. There is nothing to delineate the “act” that is performed from real life.

Example: When the Mother blinds her daughter, she alters her physical existence so that she will properly embody her female gender identity according to social custom (not looking at men). While the Maiden is performing her gender through various acts, she is irreversibly blind so that her performance is now her reality. What does it mean when the body is permanently changed to embody a particular gender identity? Does this border on essentialism by presupposing a biological or physical definition of gender? This example exposes not only the violence and pain that results from extremely repressive social conventions that dictate how one performs one’s identity but also the tragic possibility that one’s identity might be permanently constrained by one’s own inability to perform beyond the body’s limitations, once again blurring the line between performance and reality.

So what?

Performance theory destabilizes our notion of gender because it asserts that gender does not express any sort of interior “self.” Instead, the self becomes “irretrievably outside,” negating the presence of an true core identity or self. While the elimination of any interior self or predetermined identity can be problematic and disheartening, it is also an incredibly liberating concept that gives a great amount of agency to the individual in his or her everyday life. If gender only exists in so far as we perform it, than we have the potential to change our identity with each new act and expression. Next to the sorrow, fear, emptiness and uncertainty of an identity that is not based on an essential or interior self there is also hope, power and opportunity.

Central Questions:

Is there an “essential self”? Is there a difference between our physical self and our “performative self”? Are we ever not performing our identity? How does this performed identity relate to our unconscious, our ego and our superego?

If our “acts” do not solely constitute our identities, what does? What about emotions, instincts, beliefs, desires, fears, dreams, etc. that pre-exist our expressions of them? What relationship do these play to our performances, the social conventions that define them, and our identities in general?

How does Butler’s theory relate to the way gender functions in the script? Does is make this a feminist or anti-feminist text? How does this theory relate to heterosexuality and homosexuality and their respective functions in the play?

How does this theory help us understand the meaning of props, costumes, images, symbols, colors, etc. throughout the play? In general, how does the play call attention to itself as a performance and what does this do?

How do we highlight the perfomative nature of identity and challenge the notion of “reality” when reality only exists in so far as the individual is performing a series of acts?

How might Lorca respond to Butler’s theory? In what ways does Butler's theory challenge Lorca's notions of a dual identity made up of an inner and outer self?

How does Butler’s theory relate to the “fragmented” identity of Buster Keaton in the film? Is there a “real” Keaton besides the public persona as portrayed in his films? Is this suggested by his inability to comprehend life beyond the screen?

What about death? What does it mean to this theory that Buster Keaton realizes death is not a performance while at the same time he draws attention to the end of the actual theatre performance? How does the play overall challenge the difference between performance and reality or challenge the notion of performance as reality?

How might technology alter the way in which Butler’s theory relates to our text?

The Dual Identity of Buster Keaton

The Marriage of Buster Keaton, a collage by Dalí sent to Lorca in a letter in early 1926

In their article “Dreaming in Pictures: The Childhood Origins of Buster Keaton’s Creativity,” Judith Sanders and Daniel Lieberfeld argue that Buster Keaton’s signature “stone face” as well as the prominent characters and themes in his films are related to a traumatic childhood. Not only does this article offer insight into the life of Buster Keaton, but it also highlights the ways in which performance and identity become blurred for this celebrity chosen by Lorca to explore the nature of dual identity.

Joseph Keaton had an incredibly unconventional childhood that exposed him to the both the amusements and hardships of vaudeville and was overshadowed by the physical abuse by his father both on and off-stage. Born on the road in 1895, Keaton was put on stage by age three and quickly rose to stardom. Rather than attend school, Keaton spent his youth practicing slapstick physical comedy routines with his father, that is, when he wasn’t getting into accidents: he got his nickname “Buster” falling down a flight of stairs (16). The injuries only grew worse as Keaton spent more time onstage participating in dangerous and abusive stunts about a father punishing his son. Keaton became known as “the Human Mop,” was thrown into walls and beaton with heavy objects (16). Though some were concerned for his safety, mostly the public just found Keaton and his father hilarious.

Keaton was already performing by age 3.

Keaton with his parents, age 4

Keaton’s alcoholic father did not limit his violent behavior to the stage, however, and during this time Keaton developed his signature “blank” face at the insistence of his father, a look which these critics believe was a representation of Keaton’s interior emotions and not simply a “blank pan or the puzzled puss” put on to get a bigger laugh (16). This question of how Keaton adopted this expression for the rest of his career suggests why Lorca was thinking about the comedian, like the mask, as a symbol of dual identity.

Other details about Keaton’s life and career also relate to this question of his identity, such as the way in which Keaton himself performs his own biography. While some critics believed that, “the [characters he played] took hold of Buster Keaton himself,” the authors of this article suggest that it was in fact the other way around and that Keaton’s characters and films became a creative outlet for his own troubling life experiences. For example, reflected in Keaton’s autobiography is the way in which he and his mother lived in constant denial of his father’s violent cruelty until Keaton was 21 when the two left their father and went to Los Angeles, suggesting that Keaton invented a much happier childhood for himself in his interviews and autobiography than he actually experienced (17). Another interesting overlap between Keaton’s life and work is the way in which the films he created and starred in himself possibly served as a way for Keaton to cope with his trauma by “[recreating] the physical dangers of his childhood, this time under circumstances of his own choosing” through his incredible stunts (18).

Brown Eyes and Friendless

The plots of Keaton’s films also address many of the issues he himself struggled with growing up, such as feeling unfairly and inexplicably punished as in Convict 13, proving his masculine identity to a cruel father in Steamboat Bill, Jr. and a psychological battle with “insecurity, inadequacy, and isolation” in The General and The Cameraman. (26). Keaton’s own favorite film and his biggest box-office success, Battling Butler, is also one of many films that enact a sort of “fantasy of revenge on a bullying parent” (26). In this way Buster Keaton serves as an appropriate case study for the tension between the identity of the performer and his character.

A sad looking Keaton surrounded by ladies.

Keaton in College, the film referenced by the Man with the White Feather Duster in Babarous Nights.

This article highlights several other interesting overlaps between Keaton’s life and work and our text. For example, in light of his traumatic childhood abuse, Keaton becomes an interesting example of another type of painful parent-child relationship that might mirror the relationship of the Maiden and the Mother in Barbarous Nights. It also becomes clear how many of the qualities of Lorca’s imagined Keaton character relate to his own performances. For example, many of Keaton’s films take place in the context dream or a nightmarish world, suggesting a surreal quality to Keaton’s own films. In addition, many critics suggest that it is Keaton’s technique for distancing himself from the audience and becoming emotionless and flat as he first appears in our play that makes his work comedic.

A forlorn Keaton in The Navigator

From his earliest performances, Keaton relied on the “mechanical quality of his rigidly controlled face” along with literally becoming objectified to his audience so that he no longer seemed human (26). Keaton also makes himself puppet-like in order to “limit the possibility of empathy” from the audience and create the amount of “insensitivity” necessary to invoke laughter (26). Ultimately this article offers unique insight into why Lorca may have been thinking about the figure of Buster Keaton in the way that he did, imagining him in terms of a dual identity that provokes serious questions about the relationship between the actor and his role as well as performance and identity and how the theatre can shed light on exactly what it means to be human.

Keaton in In the Good Old Summertime, 1949 (left) and The Railrodder, 1965 (right)

Works Cited:

Sanders, Judith and Daniel Lieberfeld. Film Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 4. Summer, 1994. JSTOR. Web. 8-31-2010.