Some movie genres are perennial. From the Keystone Kops to Mad Max: Fury Road, chase films have kept the cameras turning. When future Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett made his one and only film in the mid-1960s, he structured it both as a chase film and as a homage to the earliest years of cinema. However, you won’t be surprised to learn that the resulting work, Film, is far more complex, strange and intellectual than its slapstick forebears.
Ross Lipman’s documentary Notfilm, which is enjoying a limited run in cinemas before being released on Blu-ray next year, explores the history of Film (1966) – how a lauded playwright collaborated with two very distinct silent-era talents to make this mysterious movie. In this philosophical chase film, a man, O (for Object) is pursued by a camera, E (for Eye). Wordless, monochrome and shot with a mobile, seasick camera, it’s a sinister shadow of those urban silent comedies in which lovable rascals are chased down by police officers. O’s fear of E is palpable right to the very end, which brings a grim twist.
The cinematographer on Film was Oscar-nominated Boris Kaufman, known for an impressive body of work, ranging from his silent collaborations with Jean Vigo to shooting Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront. He was also the brother of the more famous Soviet director Dziga Vertov (real name Denis Kaufman). While Film represents Beckett’s first and only foray into cinema, it was one of the final appearances on screen for its legendary star, Buster Keaton. Notably less nimble than he appeared in the acrobatic, stunt-based work of his youth, in Film, Keaton’s whole body has grown to match his solemn face. Here, aged nearly 70, he moves like an old man, hulking his broad shoulders in front of the camera, with his trademark skewwhiff pork-pie hat representing his only concession to a comic persona.
It’s not possible to argue that Film catapulted Keaton back to the height of his 1920s fame, and he continually claimed not to really understand the project (“I took one look at [Beckett’s] script, and asked him if he ate welsh rarebit before going to bed at night”), but it’s unique among the actor’s work, and a moment of unexpected reflection in the midst of his 1960s career. And it’s a rather bittersweet fact that it was Film, rather than his own productions, that gave Keaton his first guest invite to a film festival. As recounted in Notfilm, the Venice film festival delegates were enthralled to hear him speak: “Keaton was there and it was understood in every language.”
Notfilm includes archive recordings of Beckett talking about the making of Film, and interviews with colleagues and experts – including a cheery anecdote from critic Leonard Maltin, who recalls crashing the NYC set of Film as a 12-year-old fan in order to share a moment with his hero Keaton, entirely oblivious to the presence or otherwise of Beckett. There is a glimpse, also, in this documentary of the film’s original opening scene: an eight-minute prologue set on a city street, which was cut by Beckett. This footage was long considered to be lost, but was discovered by Notfilm’s director Ross Lipman in classic style – in some rusty cans underneath the producer’s kitchen sink. The full prologue will be available as an extra on the Blu-ray edition of Film and Notfilm.
While Notfilm recounts the story of Film’s conception, production and reception, it is more of a cinema-essay than a documentary. Lipman has made a film that is both about Film, and about film itself. A collage of reference scenes from the careers of Keaton and the Kaufman brothers appear throughout . Scenes of Keaton’s adventures on the other side of the cinema screen in Sherlock Jr, his photographic clones in The Playhouse and his hapless novice movie-maker in The Cameraman remind us that he was an artist who explored the medium as well as perfecting his own performances. The City symphonies of Kaufman and Vertov collide with scenes from more silent movies, from Chaplin to Un Chien Andalou, surrounding Beckett’s mid-century production with the images and textures of another era. Notfilm helps us to understand that Film was made as a tribute to a lost world of film-making – silent, unfettered and inspirational. Beckett, a champion of clowning and of the absurd finds a natural home in this landscape, and Keaton provides a link between his avant-garde project and the naively surreal world of 20s slapstick.
And there’s another reason for Lipman’s film to look back to the beginnings of the medium. As the shift from analogue to digital converts the medium of film into “notfilm”, Lipman’s essay is a reminder of what has been lost, while he explores the contributions of two men, Beckett and Keaton, who sought to wring the most from each frame.
- Notfilm screens at the ICA, London, on 13-17 April, and will be released with Film on Blu-ray in the UK by BFI, and in the US by Milestone Films.
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