Earth (1930)

It takes courage to make a message movie these days. In Stalinist Russia, it took courage not to. Whatever else you may think of Earth, consider that, in a place and time when Communist orthodoxy was demanded from the top down, with brutal consequences for those who deviated, director Alexander Dovzhenko dared to be ambivalent.

Three Ages (1923)

Everyone reading this knows Buster Keaton, and most of you probably know a little bit about Three Ages, his first feature, too. Untested in hour-long comedies, Keaton agreed to film something that was splittable into three short films: each one able to stand on its own, if need be. As it turned out, Three Ages worked out just fine as a feature. Today, we remember it as the start of the second, and most artistically successful, phase of his career.

If you like Keaton’s shorts, you’ll like Three Ages. And who doesn’t like his shorts? Almost all of them are fast-paced, sharp comedies, with good gags that obey the laws of physics. They were ambitious too—in scale, as in Cops, and in technical reach, like The Playhouse. The trio of films that make up Three Ages fall about in the middle of that pack. One, though, offered a glimpse into Keaton’s future work, and for that reason, it the most special of the three.

The General (1926)

The General is the greatest of Buster Keaton’s features—his most inventive, ambitious, and perfectly crafted film. To say this is not simply to conjure up some scale of achievement, with The General at one end, and say, Battling Butler at the other. The General is more than a highpoint in a Keaton Continuum; it is also unique among his works. And this is thanks to a little man, Johnnie Gray, whom Keaton plays, at the centre of it all. Utterly capable, Johnnie Gray is no typical Keaton hero.

In fact, I’d trust Johnnie with my life.

Within the Law (1923)

The law today is the rich man’s law. The courts are the rich man’s courts. Lawyers speak not of courts of justice, but of courts of law, and this law can be twisted by hirelings schooled in deft evasion for the service of any rogue who is able to pay the lawyer’s price. This system becomes the rich man’s tool.


With a little tweaking, these could be the words of a current New York Times columnist. But they’re not. They’re part of a fictional op-ed; part of a script. When Mary Turner reads these words in a magazine, she’s inspired by them. If men can get rich on the backs of others, all within the letter of the law, then so can she.