Keaton's Cops
Chicago Filmmakers

Critic's Choice - Chicago Reader

" Fred Camper, Chicago Reader 12/2/93 - ?the closing off of one possibility opens up another, and the film's strange focus reveals a world of shape and rhythm, complex movements that create depth, and static, almost statuesque compositions"


12/8/03 - 12/8/03


" Fred Camper, Chicago Reader 12/2/93 - ?It's hard not to feel a bit annoyed at first with Ken Jacobs's 1991 film Keaton's Cops. He has printed Buster Keaton's hilarious silent classic Cops so that except for a few early shots and the final title only the bottom fifth of the image is visible-- the top 80 percent of the frame is black. While it's surprising how much can still be seen--small fragments of events, some of the final chase--the effect is to remove the narrative causality around which the movie is organized. We see the knees of two men apparently sitting together on the curb, without knowing why; the intertitles have been blocked out. But the closing off of one possibility opens up another, and the film's strange focus reveals a world of shape and rhythm, complex movements that create depth, and static, almost statuesque compositions. Jacobs's reduction of the image to a narrow strip becomes a kind of metaphorical philosopher's stone, transforming a concrete world of characters and actions into a mysterious one of suggestive forms, alive with multiple possibilities but not limited to any one of them.

Director
Ken Jacobs

Performers
Buster Keaton

Production
Chicago Filmmakers

Tags: Film, American, 1993