The Scarecrow (Buster Keaton, 1920)

Realism

• The costumes in the film strongly resemble the clothing worn by working class American citizens in the 1920s. The female in the film wears a dress whilst the men wear suit jackets and trousers.
• The world of the film mirrors reality to present it in a more authentic light. Throughout the film, the control of the patriarchy is shown. The woman in the film, despite being grown up, appears to still need her father’s permission to be involved with men; which is shown when he gets angry and Keaton and his co-star Joe Roberts for talking to his daughter and sends her back inside the house. She reflects the patriarchy in other ways including her participation in traditional female roles such as dancing, baking and being longed for by multiple men.
• Throughout The Scarecrow, an accurate portrayal of poverty and agriculture in 1920s America can be seen. Multiple empty Californian landscapes are seen as well as a wheat field full of various farming equipment such as a machine to thresh corn being operated by multiple working class men.The characters living conditions also reflect poverty as pigs eat their scraps and they life in a self-sufficient way. The dry dusty environments represent the growing presence of poverty and agriculture in 1920s America and realistically reflect the contexts of the world at the time.
  

Expressionism

• At the beginning of The Scarecrow, a title card with the words “Slowly and majestically the sun steals gradually over the hill-tops” and shortly after an extreme long shot of the sun rising is shown. The sun is clearly rising at an unrealistic, and astronomically incorrect, speed thus showing that exaggerated mise-en-scene is being used to manipulate reality.
• Several iris shots are used throughout this film such as when Roberts looking in the mirror before flipping it to reveal a photo of the woman next door. The iris shots focus the audience’s attention on one specific aspect thus controlling our interpretations as the shots are not subjective.
• Keaton uses exaggerated film elements to emphasise the gags made in the film. This is seen in the wide shot of Roberts sitting on the back of a car with two other men in the front, as he sits on the edge of the car it begins to tip backwards which is an example of expressionism as this would never happen in real life and is clearly being used to make a joke about his weight.