Excellent ... Stevens, in Camera Man takes an original and, in a way, more distanced approach to Keaton ... Stevens offers a series of pas de deux between Keaton and other personages of his time, who shared one or another of his preoccupations or projects. It’s a new kind of history, making more of overlapping horizontal 'frames' than of direct chronological history, and Stevens does it extraordinarily well. Some of these pairings, to be sure, are more graceful than others ... A chapter on Robert Sherwood and Keaton is genuinely illuminating ... Stevens takes up the really big question: What made Keaton’s solo work seem so modern?
Stevens clearly adores her subject, describing him as a 'solemn, beautiful, perpetually airborne man.' Camera Man is less a traditional biography than a series of reported essays about the progress of the 20th century with Keaton at their center. Sometimes Stevens ventures too far afield ... But Stevens is sharper when she focuses on such ancillary phenomena as the emergence of serious film criticism ... Stevens [has] done well to bring the boy with the funeral expression back from the dead.
Dana Stevens shows us she isn’t screwing around as early as page six by unpacking the year 1895 ... Coming from another author, this would perhaps undercut the celebration of Keaton’s name by reducing it. Coming from Stevens...parsing out Keaton’s beginnings in the shadow of great national change serves to brighten his star ... Stevens never hides her admiration for Keaton and his films—if she did, we’d have as little reason to read Camera Man as she would to write it—but in drawing her conclusions about the space he occupied in 20th century culture, that admiration gradually glows warmer. This is not the work of a fan, but an enthusiast and expert ... Camera Man deftly separates man from character and accomplishment from virtue. It may be that Stevens respects Keaton as much for his contributions to cinema as for his failings as a human being, though that judgment is for the individual to decide. What’s undeniable is the weight of Stevens’ knowledge coupled with the nimbleness of her prose. Together, these qualities make Camera Man a joy, eye-opening for casual and devoted moviegoers alike, and infectious in its adoration of Keaton’s filmography.
... superb ... an unconventional biography that casts its subject as the protagonist of his time, a mirror for the rapidly changing country in which he lived ... Some of the most unexpectedly entertaining chapters deal with now-forgotten phenomena, such as the advent of kit houses...and the rise and fall of the Childs Restaurant chain ... a disarmingly personal book. Stevens explains her relationship to Keaton’s work in a brief preface, but her presence is felt throughout ... Of the book’s various miniature biographies and character sketches, the most moving is the detailing of Roscoe Arbuckle’s sad life ... Keaton, of course, is at the center of it all, and Camera Man enhances our understanding of his life and times ... Camera Man will appeal to established Keaton fans and induct some curious newcomers into the world of 'the great stone face.'
Ms. Stevens (who is a professional acquaintance of mine) writes with grace and passion about her idol ... Ms. Stevens dives into subjects many Keaton admirers have merely sideswiped, notably the painful ethnic and racial jokes in his films ... it isn’t just Keaton who emerges with startling precision, but those around him as well ... As a critic, and not a biographer, Ms. Stevens can spark some disagreement ... If you want a sense of passionate attachment to Buster Keaton—either as one of the great comic filmmakers of all time, or as a loyal and likable man in an industry famed for those who lack both qualities—that’s Dana Stevens.
Stevens vividly describes Keaton’s early life on America’s vaudeville circuit ... Stevens’s book is not so much a straightforward biography as a remarkable cultural history with Keaton as the 'bridge between the stage-based entertainment of the nineteenth century and the mass-produced technology of the twentieth' ... Camera Man distinguishes itself from past biographies of Keaton by underlining the resilience of his career, which latterly encompassed a circus act in Paris, several cameos in big films such as Sunset Boulevard, a syndicated television show, and numerous TV commercials, as opposed to what is most often perceived as a sad, alcohol-fueled decline.
Stevens is a passionate Keaton fan ... Hers is a critical biography, less bound to the track of chronology and more nimble, alert to parallels and crossed paths. She goes on long discourses through the life of Keaton’s colleagues and contemporaries, like Roscoe Arbuckle or F. Scott Fitzgerald, but her flair is for close reading ... [her book does] excellently in handling the sadder second half of Keaton’s career, after he signed away creative control over his movies to MGM, and gravity, mixed with alcohol, finally began to do its work.
Buster Keaton was not only an early filmmaker of extraordinary ability, Stevens contends, but his life and work act as a lens through which to view the emergence of cinema and the arrival of the American Century. Camera Man is an essential read if you’re interested in any of these topics, and a terrific starting place for the budding Busterphile ... Stevens does a fine job chronicling the weary world that was America in the early 20th century ... Only a drawn-out chapter covering Buster’s parallels with Hollywood wannabe F. Scott Fitzgerald—though the two likely never met—feels like filler ... traverses the lows of Buster’s middle years to find hope in his artistic and critical renaissance in the 1950s and ’60s.
In this thoughtful, engaging, and moving work, Slate writer Stevens posits that Buster Keaton’s life is an entry point to understanding the 20th century—and vice versa ... Stevens’s acumen and analysis further elevate this book, offering insights and entertaining extrapolations on the myriad films and entertainment figures discussed within ... More than a biography of Buster Keaton, this is a stunning, extensively researched, and eminently readable cultural history.
Film critic Stevens astutely aligns Buster Keaton’s kinetic cinematic artistry with the velocity of innovation and change in the twentieth century ... Steven’s incisive, encompassing, and invigorating portrait will deepen and revitalize appreciation for his genius.
Though its historical wanderings read as windingly as one of Keaton’s famous chase scenes, Camera Man redeems details from Keaton’s life that previous biographers have misread or glossed over ... Like the handsome, stone-faced performer himself, Camera Man has wide appeal. General readers, history buffs and deep-cut Keaton historians alike will laugh, cry and marvel at both the world of Buster Keaton and the effect he had on cinema.
... a masterful mix of cultural history, biography, and film criticism to consider of the work and legacy of silent film star Buster Keaton ... Stevens argues that Keaton’s career arc mirrors America’s evolving cultural tastes, making a strong case that 'Buster Keaton belonged to the twentieth century, and it to him.' Stevens also includes wonderful mini-biographies of Keaton’s contemporaries, among them groundbreaking silent filmmaker Mabel Normand and vaudevillian Bert Williams, who inspired Keaton’s own work. Combining the same ingredients that made Keaton’s movies indelible—an elegant narrative, humor, and pathos—Stevens’s account isn’t one to miss.
... the author doesn’t flesh out...larger events, and attempts to connect Keaton to them are often misguided. Stevens rightly bemoans the poor treatment of women in the cinema of that era, so it’s odd she doesn’t note that many lead actresses in Keaton’s great films—Sybil Seely in One Week, Kathryn McGuire in The Navigator, Marion Mack in The General—more than hold their own and are every bit the Keaton character’s equal. The author devotes eight pages to Spite Marriage, a 1929 MGM mediocrity Keaton didn’t control, but she provides far less detail about Our Hospitality, Go West, and other superior films where Keaton was in charge. Stevens devotes more space to Charlie Chaplin’s 1952 Limelight, a plodding film in which Keaton has only a small role, than some of Keaton’s directorial gems. Readers hungry for details of how Keaton made his pictures should look elsewhere. An appreciative but wildly uneven look at a brilliant filmmaker.
