The High Sign (1921)

• Relevant context:
• Who is Kafka?

  A writer whose work combined realist/fantastic, featuring isolated figures facing bizarre or surreal predicaments  
• What does Kafkaesque mean?

  Even though the character’s intentions are good, he cannot win
• How is this seen in The High Sign?

  Protagonist alienated from mainstream society, juxtaposed with the mechanical world --> "He's an alienated modern man making life more bearable through comedy."
• At what point in Keaton's career does this film capture?

  His transition from supporting role to star
• Opening sequence:
• Intertitle ‘Our hero came from nowhere – he wasn’t going anywhere and kicked off somewhere’


  Kafkaesque, Keaton’s ‘little man’ persona captured 
• Keaton’s arrival – falling off a train


  Modernism – struggle against forces of modern age
• Pratfalls falling off train and bench


  American silent comedy feature – pratfalls demonstrate slapstick humor of era 
• Steals newspaper – anti-hero 

  Kafkaesque
• LS long-take arrival at merry-go-round and bench (realist) combined with unfolding newspaper into impossibly big piece of paper gag (exaggerated mise-en-scene, expressionistic)

  Realist settings and surrealist gags of silent comedy stars  
• Edited using classical continuity editing


  Seamless flow, realist
• XCU on advert – direct audience attention


  Expressionism
• Shooting gallery sequence:
• LS/LT - pratfall/ slapstick fall


  American silent comedy feature, realist gag 
• LS/LT (realist) - paints a hook and hangs his hat

  Impossible gag - expressionistic 
• Charlie Chaplin reference

  Parody as he appears intoxicated, intertextual  
• Performance 


  Old stone face 
• MS fixes bench using cigar as a nail

  Impossible gag - expressionistic
• Butler sequence:
• Intertitle ‘do your duty Brother Buzzard’
• How do 'The Blinking Buzzards' link to context?

  Ex-soldiers took on violent and corrupt lifestyles after WW1 as they struggled to rejoin society --> realist
• LS trapdoor visual gag - Butler doesn’t fall but Buster Keaton does

  Realist gag, slapstick 
• Cross-cutting between gang and butler’s phone call

  Modernism - embrace of technology 
• Blinking Buzzards’ highly exaggerated performance (especially Tiny Tim’s height) and makeup


  Contributes to mise en scene, expressionism  
• Butler pours ‘something’ into drink

  Prohibition reference 
• Keaton breaks 4th wall and looks at camera 


  Old stone face performance, audience awareness - expressionistic
• Iris on cup of tea, reflection of horse kicking added in editing - drink has a kick

  highly expressionistic --> iris, reflecting his inner thoughts/emotions as horse isn’t there 
• The house:
• Tour of the trap doors in the house – made authentically and can be plausible to real life

  Realist 
• Cuts to the set of the house

  Highly expressionistic 
• XLS long take of house

  Allows audience to see both floors of house – a full-scale cutaway house was constructed to allow four different spaces to be shown at once
• What can the mechanics of the house set be commenting on?

  The workings of modern architecture and its possible absurdist tendencies 
• What did surrealists read Keaton's intent of the house to be?

  To transform the dry rationalism of modern industrial technology into something magical and entertaining 
• Keaton utilizes acrobatic ability from vaudeville days with the stunts he performs in this scene


  Asserts control over mechanical world as characters master their environments 
• Blinking Buzzard’s and Keaton’s performance during chase over-exaggerated and unrealistic

  Expressionistic
• Keaton shuts Blinking Buzzard’s head in door


  Reality defying gag - expressionistic
• Keaton tries to kick curtain but kicks man behind him

  Slapstick comedy