A Camera in a Film, with Its Character - Text 4
In the 1920s, the camera operator’s role became invaluable, thanks to the operators’ skill in capturing events: “When acclaiming our modern heroes, let’s not forget The News Reel Cameraman... the daredevil who defies death to give us pictures of the world’s happenings.”[9] After all, Keaton’s challenge throughout the film is to go from being a mere street photographer, equipped with a tintype camera, to a professional moving picture camera operator for the newsreel MGM News. In The Cameraman, a short sequence demonstrates the great love Hollywood had for the Akeley camera during the silent film period: we see Buster Keaton observing it with admiration and curiosity. The sequence underscores the technological contrast between the old Prevost camera (1909)[10] and the high-performance Akeley, viewed as the best camera at the time for capturing action scenes. In sum, at the time, the Akeley had conquered Hollywood, to the point of becoming a full-fledged diegetic character in the film starring Keaton.
In The Cameraman, we find two protagonist couples: Buster and his Prevost camera, and Buster’s antagonist Stagg and his Akeley camera. In the film, the Akeley becomes a symbol of the technology and innovation of the day in the field of movie cameras, to the point of playing a major role in the offices of MGM News. In addition, in one of the film’s scenes, Keaton studies the camera by opening up its lateral cover to take a look at its internal mechanism; this contributes to the contrast with the Prevost camera which, with its nearly twenty years of service in the field, was now considered obsolete by 1928 standards.[11] The film teems with references to the technology of the movie cameras in use in the late 1920s, such as the scene showing the storefront window of the Schreiber shop where several cameras for sale are displayed: in the middle is another Akeley, on the left a Bell & Howell 2709, and on the right a Mitchell Standard – each commonly used in the MGM studios and throughout Hollywood. Judging by the fluidity of the shots, the sequences of the shoot-out in Chinatown, which are part of the film Keaton’s character is shooting, appear to have been shot with a gyroscopic tripod or even an Akeley camera, and not with a Prevost as the film’s storyline tells us.
