Buster Keaton

            The core comparison is that while the mechanics developed, he went on to work more with the mechanics of making and the world around him to develop a film focusing on editing, composition, and special effects, while Chaplin focused on his acting and performance. When Gunning mentions Keaton’s modern insight, he is referring to the fact that Keaton worked with the mechanics of the present and developed his making based upon what is “now”, at that time. It is also stated, that Keaton extended the insight of man’s modern behavior into a view of the world itself as machinelike, referring to it as an alien and alienating system. So, Keaton is poking fun at the human relation to machines. Mechanization’s relevance is that Keaton’s gags depend on an encounter and interaction with physical properties. They depend his ability to occupy a mathematically precise point within a dangerous process. He relies on the alienation from the machine in a situation to create comedy through the scenario.