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This year, Keaton made an appearance on NBC's Heroes. Hiro and Ando, a pair of Japanese heroes, pursue a Haitian bad guy into a French theater to watch an American comedy. Wow, multiculturalism gives me a headache. Keaton's Cops is playing on the screen when they first enter the theater.
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Andrew Stanton, the director of WALL-E, confirmed that Keaton was a major influence on his robot hero. "Oh, he's definitely Keaton, in my mind," said Stanton. The director explained that WALL-E's binocular eyes were designed to give the robot ''a Buster Keaton, stone-face, sad-eyes quality." Stanton explained that he immersed his crew in the work of Keaton and Chaplin. "We looked at everything those guys did," said Stanton. "We watched a Chaplin film and one of Keaton's at lunch every day for almost a year until we saw their entire body of work. We walked away thinking there's almost no emotion you can't convey visually. It gave us the courage to take a risk to get it across: If those guys did it, we could too. . . [I]n terms of humor, of how much you can convey with very little, we definitely pulled from Keaton's playbook. He was the Great Stone Face - his expression never changed very much, and neither does WALL-E's."
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It is a low-key film that progresses at a relaxed pace. Burr wrote, "Only at the end do we understand the vast emotional terrain traveled." In early scenes, Horten is shown performing routine tasks, which helps you to understand the mundaneness of his life. A scene showing Horten filling a water cup in a bird cage is not something you would see in an American film unless the bird were to bite the man's finger or fly out of the cage and shit on the man's shoulder.
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Horten encounters a number of men and women long retired from the world. Early on, he visits a nursing home to see his mother, who is in a catatonic state. Horten is clearly troubled to see the woman this way. Later, Horten sees an old man enter a smoke shop acting confused and almost desperate. The man asks the shopkeeper if he bought matches from her earlier. He seems to have a vague recollection of the purchase but he cannot find what he did with the matches. The woman gives him another box of matches and then helps him to the door. We can see the man through the window in the store front. He no sooner leaves the store then he falls down on the sidewalk. This is something that the audience can see, but it goes unnoticed by Horten and the shopkeeper. The old man eventually picks himself up and returns inside the shop asking again if he had bought matches. Horten closely observes this old man who has trouble remembering things or staying on his feet. Critic Walter Addiego says that this "series of mildly absurd events and adventures. . . hint at how his remaining days may turn out."
Soon after, Horten helps another old man who has collapsed in the street. The old man introduces himself as Trygve Sissener. He says that he is a retired diplomat. Horten takes it upon himself to escort the friendly old gentleman home. Sissener arrives home to find that he forget to shut off his refrigerator's ice dispenser, which has spilled enough ice on the kitchen floor to sink the Titanic. Again, Horten is served with a reminder as to how unreliable the mind becomes in old age.
Sissener picks up a rock he has sitting inside his liquor cabinet and tells Horten that this is a meteor rock 4.3 billion years old. He explains that the rock started its journey before the Earth was even born. Horten quips that the rock traveled all those years just to end its journey in a liquor cabinet. It is the one time in the film that he smiles, albeit it is a slight smile. Sissener insists that the journey of the old rock has not ended. It is an obvious, yet effective metaphor for Horten.
Sissener tells Horten that, years ago, he discovered that he could see with his eyes closed and he was able to drive through city streets without looking at the road. He invites Horten to come with him for a drive in the morning and he will show him that he is able to do this. The men realize that this is something daring that they are about to do, but they believe that this adventure will be worth the risk. This sets into motion the final act of the film.
Horten's preoccupation with trains certainly links him to Keaton. The character particularly resembles Keaton when he gets lost on an airport tarmac. He stands stiffly, this lone figure in the middle of a great, barren expanse.
I have written a futuristic novel, Slaughterhouse Frome, in which a planet has been named after Keaton. The planet has an amusement park based on Keaton's films. Geneticists on the planet initiate a project to clone Keaton but the clone, while a mechanical genius, fails to demonstrate a sense of humor. I am beginning to wonder, given this growing adoration of Keaton, if the idea of a Keaton amusement park isn't too far-fetched.
Keaton, as a comedy icon, has become embedded in our culture. He is sure to influence filmmakers for generations to come.
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One Keaton fan was given a plush Wall-E for a gift. She dressed it in a Buster Keaton costume and the resemblance is absolutely uncanny.
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