I'm watching the film now, and they've just got to the scene where they debate - Keaton or Chaplin.
Personally, I'm going to say Keaton. Probably just because I'm more familiar with Keaton's work than Chaplin's. Although my hometown is where Chaplin made his stage debut.
"Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, Romeo"
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I'm watching the film now, and they've just got to the scene where they debate - Keaton or Chaplin.
Oh come on, that was just a silly parody of cinephilia. They were both of them two different film-makers making films in different styles and they had different careers, Keaton's career being finished with the arrival of sound thanks to horrible producers and Chaplin continuing into the 60's though nowhere as prolific as before.
Even the arguments are stale. Like "Keaton was a complete film-maker and all Chaplin cared about was his ego."...when Keaton never made a film that didn't star him while Chaplin did A Woman of Paris(one of the most influential of all silent films) and Keaton's co-stars are rarely very memorable while Chaplin gave us Jackie Coogan, Edna Purviance and especially Paulette Goddard. With Keaton, the only really excellent co-stars that come to mind are the guy who plays his father in Steamboat Bill, Jr..
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
I'd say Chaplin as a filmmaker, but Keaton as a comedian. But the world is a better place because we had both of them.
shareWell my answer is easily Chaplin but I have seen every Chaplin film (feature) and I have seen very little of Keaton's work. I like them both though.
My three favorite films (order changes): Vertigo, Taxi Driver, and 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Keaton.
...and Harold Lloyd.
From -- James Agee, "Comedy's Greatest Era"
Keaton's comedy is ideally suited to the aesthetics and technology of the movies. It's a medium brought to life by sprockets and shutters, lamps and lenses, and to Keaton the world itself is one huge, whirring, implacable machine.
But if Buster is forever at the mercy of the inexorable, indifferent forces around him, it's his impassivity and adaptability to those forces that allow him to survive, and triumph, over adversity. Keaton can always roll with whatever punches the universe can throw at him.
Unlike Chaplin's "Little Tramp," Keaton never cries out for sympathy. The audience doesn't need to be coaxed into identifying with him; the serene blankness of his face is like an empty screen onto which viewers can project their own hopes and fears. Like the audience, Keaton himself is an observer. He doesn't rush blindly into action; he waits, watches, considers, taking in everything around him. And that's his secret.
Life, Keaton demonstrates, is just a matter of timing. Even when surrounded by chaos (a hurricane in Steamboat Bill, Jr.; an avalanche in Seven Chances; a raging river in Our Hospitality; a Civil War battle in The General), Keaton understands that if you know where to look, and when to leap, you can hurl yourself right into the eye of the storm and pass through, safely, to come out on the other side.
"There are some that find Keaton's films dull, preferring Chaplin's flash, his easy laughs and unearned tears. There is no pressing reason to choose between them, any more than there is a reason to choose between Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. Both have their virtues and failings, depending on your point of view, but Keaton is definitely the more realistic of the two; when he kicks a villain in the ass, as Chaplin did constantly, his foot gets hurt".
(Dan Callahan-Senses Cinema)
Keaton
shareChaplin.
In all honesty, Keaton was much more inventive with physical comedy. I remember a film about his work saying he was "The world's greatest inventor of the mechanical gag, inanimate objects seemed to come to life in his hands." I totally agree with that. Keaton was very creative and very, very daring with things he could do physically (climbing and running all over a moving train, sitting in the perfect spot so that the side of a house collapsed around him)doing things that would get most of us killed. Chaplin never did anything as physically inventive as Keaton could, but his films never really seemed to have stories that cut too deep.
Chaplin on the other hand was a great storyteller (as has been previously noted) and had films with much deeper stories that were able to make audiences feel a wide range of emotions instead of just laughter. Keaton never made a film as emotional as City Lights or The Kid. But at the same time I have to agree with Stanley Kubrick's quote that "Nobody could make a film as pedestrian as Chaplin did." Chaplin never really moved his camera. He just rooted it to a spot, pointed it at where the action was taking place and let things roll, panning left or right whenever an actor moved.
So basically, Keaton was more of a style-over-substance filmmaker while Chaplin was more substance-over-style. There's nothing wrong with either of those two types of films and it's a shame that Keaton didn't have as great a career as Chaplin did in his later years. And it's really a stupid argument to try and say that one was better than the other from a filmmaking standpoint.
Having said all that, I also kind of like Lloyd . . .
"There's a mechanical snake in the sky."
"Shoot it."
"Not yet, I want to study its habbits."
Chaplin
shareKeaton, of course.
shareBut then again, Theo bought into that crazy French Jerry Lewis thing.
I want to shake every limb in the Garden of Eden
and make every lover the love of my life
Chaplin. From what I've seen of both, I prefer Chaplin.
shareTough question. I will say Chaplin because he was both funny and conveyed messages. Keaton did to some extent but I feel he wasn't the artist Chaplin was. I would say Keaton's films are more inventive and impressive with the tricks and special effects, and he has some great outlandish humor, but I think Chaplin is the better pure storyteller. Both were masters and ahead of their time, can't go wrong with either.
When I watch Keaton, I'm entertained and laugh my ass off, when I watch Chaplin I may laugh a little less but I feel I get more out of it and I think about it for longer.