SILENT CINEMA : Star persona of the 1920s

•Film studios would create personas for actors and actresses, crafting a celebrity  image for each performer – they created regulations such as morality clauses and built gender stereotypes into their persona.

Guardian article on silent era film stars

•This was a precursor to the emergence of the Studio System with Hollywoodland dominating cinema with its use of vertical integration from 1930s-1960.

•Buster Keaton bypassed this by having creative control on his productions (not just an actor, but producer, writer and director as well) – essentially, Keaton crafted his own persona.

His flexible and layered persona included the following elements and recurring motifs :

           • Deadpan humour and neutral expression• Acrobatic  skill and heavy use of stuntwork.
• Interactions with physical objects and locations ( sometimes skilled,occasionally clumsy)

He developed a combination of various personae : 


 The outsider clown , not integrated in or subject to the rules of  everyday society or underworlds•

          The everyman trying to join in or get ahead• 


          The suitor : Seeking a soulmate and competing for a woman's attentions

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