One Week (1920)

• Tuesday sequence:
• Iris effect


  Expressionistic
• CU on calendar

  Temporal narrative time marker --> realist
• Features the first of how many houses Keaton made for the short? 


  Three
• What are the three major gags in the Tuesday sequence?

  The fall, The pivot, The drop
• LS, LT of BK sawing wood and falling with inter title 'I'll be right down!"

  Visual and inter title gag --> realist and slapstick humour of silent comedy time
• reaction shot of Sybil, performance mirrors audience reaction

  Realist
• MLS Handy Hank renumbers crates 


  Visual gag --> dramatic irony
• LS Sybil cooks breakfast while Keaton builds house

  Enforces traditional patriarchal gender stereotypes of 1920s (Sybil - passive, domestic role and Keaton - active, provider role) --> realist
• Sybil is active in construction when she throws Keaton a hammer 


  Subverts audience expectations of female character
• Throws hammer to Keaton (famous pivot gag) which flips the wall they’re working on upside down


  Visually reversing their roles with Sybil at the top, demonstrating female agency
• Sybil performed her own stunts - just as bold/fearless as Keaton


  perhaps because of her family’s vaudeville background, realist
• How is this female participation reflective of the current political environment?uffragettes push for equal rights and have just won the vote 
• How is this female participation reflective of the current political environment?

  Suffragettes push for equal rights and have just won the vote 
• House falls on Keaton (famous drop gag) - performed himself

  Realist, (originally done in Steamboat Jr by his partner and mentor Fatty Arbuckle)
• Shot in a LS


  Shatters any notion of illusion –emphasizes the innovation of the gags being real, realist
• Bath scene:
• What was Sybil Seely known as?

  One of Mack Sennett's 'Bathing Beauties'
• MLS long take of her in bath, drops sponge and breaks 4th wall as she goes to retrieve it –direct look to camera

  Expressionist
• Camera operator’s hand covers screen for her modesty –making it clear it’s a film


  Expressionism, social norms of women being modest and respectable  
• Relevant context:
• First feature Keaton ever released  
• Parody of ‘Home Made’ - an educational short about ready-made house building produced by Ford Motor Company
• What did the Ford Model T symbolise in Keaton's films?


  American working class
• Friday sequence:
• Opens with Iris on crowded table of guests


  Manipulates audience focus - expressionistic  
• Furniture is disproportionate for room with all the guests squeezed on – emphasized with their overexaggerated performance taking up room 


  Exaggerated mise-en-scene presenting a disproportionate reality – expressionism
• Guests are dressed in slightly nicer clothes – men in suits and women in dresses 


  Typical attire of 20s American working class which grounds them in reality (realism) and emphasizes Keaton’s everyman persona – relatability  
• A MLS, long-take (realist) depicts Keaton stood in front of the house as it begins to move 


  Realist as the house is a real house and is actually spinning  
• Which house was this out of the three Keaton made for One Week?

  Second
• How did the house spin?

  On a turntable with a giant engine\
• Cuts to MLS of guests spinning around in the house 


  Expressionistic performance 
• LS, long-take (realist) of Keaton running and attempting to jump into house


  Realist as BK performed these stunts himself
• ‘The house feels like a character in its own right’  
• Iris on Sybil Seely spinning around on piano stool and flying out window

  Representation – did her own stunt, expressionistic
• MCU of couple looking at house and acting defeated

  Realist performance  
• LS shows couple turning around to look at house and collapsing on one another


  Slapstick humor and expressionistic performance, emphasizes the absurd appearance of the house  
• “Every part of it was in the wrong place” - Keaton 
• House takes on cubist form, resembling an abstract and angular face


  References the modernist movement of cubism for comedic effect 
• What can the cubist appearance of the house be seen as?

  Statement on the absurdity that modernity brings about