三个时代

jc CTVA 310

Tim Halloran

10 September 2017

A Short Review of "Three Age" and "Our Hospitality"

I watched both these films at 7 PM on September 7th. "Three Age" and "Our Hospitality" were both mainly acted and directed by Buster Keaton. "Three Age,” Buster Keaton's first feature is a combination of three short films. He shots to fame with another feature, "Our Hospitality,” which is a black and white silent thriller produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and it is distributed by Metro Pictures Corporation. Like Buster Keaton’s early works, these two features display his own style. They have included all the crucial elements in Buster Keaton’s Style, which are the three-act structure (The Classic Narrative Structure), thrilling scenes with lots of danger action effects, fascinating plots with natural but also hilarious performances and romantic happy endings.

More specifically, every short film in the feature “Three Age" has the Classic Three-Act Structure system. The system has three acts: The Set-up (Act I), The Development (Act II), and The Conclusion (Act III). During Act I in "Three Age," the audience is introduced to the film’s protagonist, a young man acted by Buster Keaton. Act I also shows the goals that each character wants to achieve: The protagonist "Keaton" and antagonist both want to get the same female, but they are standing in each other's way of achieving this goal. In Act II, the film’s protagonists generally encounter a number of obstacles that keep them from succeeding. As Keaton’s goal becomes harder to reach, he is losing his female partner and his rival is too strong to beat. In Act III, the film reaches its climax. The protagonist and the antagonist finish their last duel, after which Keaton beats the antagonist and gets the female lover.

Moreover, "Three Age" and "Our Hospitality" both have thrilling scenes with lots of danger action effects and happy endings. For instance, in the climbing scene in "Three Age," wherein Keaton climbs the cliff, it causes the audience to feel nervous and agitated, just like the gun-shot chasing scene in "Our Hospitality." Likewise, they both end in happiness. Every protagonist in "Three Age," beats the rival and wins his love. The protagonist in "Our Hospitality" also survives Vendetta and marries his enemy's daughter.

Compared with the movies produced nowadays, Buster Keaton’s films, as "old-fashioned" comedy style pieces in the early 20th century, had not benefited from modern sound and vision technologies. However, his comedic silent features are still remarkable film-works with a high level of completion. "Three Age" and "Our Hospitality" were early films, but they are still extraordinary, and have shown Buster Keaton’s style to the world.