The life and works of one of America's most influential and celebrated filmmakers and comedians, Buster Keaton, are explored in Director Peter Bogdanovich’s documentary, The Great Buster.
The film chronicles Keaton’s beginnings on the vaudeville circuit and the development of his physical comedy and the deadpan expression that earned him the moniker of “The Great Stone Face.” Interspersed with interviews of nearly two-dozen collaborators, filmmakers, performers and friends including Mel Brooks, Quentin Tarantino, Werner Herzog, Dick Van Dyke and Johnny Knoxville, The Great Buster also examines his career acme as the director, writer, producer and star of his own short films and features — such as 1926’s The General and 1928’s Steamboat Bill, Jr. — that immortalized him as one of the greatest actor-filmmakers in history; as well as the loss of artistic independence and career decline that marked his later years.
Following the DGA Special Projects Documentary Series screening in Los Angeles on April 7, Bogdanovich sat down with DGA Special Projects Documentary Series Subcommittee Chair Chuck Workman (Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles) to discuss the making of The Great Buster, which premiered at the 2018 Venice Film Festival and won the Venezia Classici Award for “Best Documentary on Cinema.”
In addition to The Great Buster, Bogdanovich’s other credits include the feature films What's Up, Doc?, Paper Moon, Nickelodeon, Mask, The Cat's Meow, She's Funny That Way; the movies for television Prowler, The Price of Heaven, The Mystery of Natalie Wood; and episodes of the series Fallen Angels and The Sopranos. He was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures and the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1971 feature The Last Picture Show. Bogdanovich has been a DGA member since 1970.
You can listen to Bogdanovich's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.