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Romantic comedy

The Cameraman

Year
1928
Length
69 minCriterion presentation Version sources ↓

A street photographer buys a motion-picture camera and tries to become a newsreel cameraman while pursuing a woman who works at the studio.

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FunnyRomantic Great first watch · Easy Romantic comedy
THE CAMERAMAN lettering above Momo operating a large movie camera among blue and cream skyscrapers.

Image: Monocurator · source · Original Monocurator artwork

What to expect

Keaton makes filmmaking itself the source of comedy: framing, timing, missing footage, accidental evidence, and the gap between an event and who receives credit for recording it. The romance gives his technical apprenticeship a human stake.

How to ease in

No knowledge of silent film is needed. Watch what the camera sees, what the studio believes it sees, and how Keaton’s body keeps solving practical problems faster than his reputation can catch up.

Heads-up

A quick, non-exhaustive note Includes dangerous stunts, a near-drowning, fighting, animal peril, and racist caricature in the Chinatown sequence.
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I love that the camera remembers what the institution ignores. Buster can fail in public all day, yet one strip of film quietly preserves the work nobody thought he had done.

— Momo

Momo thinking about this film

Credits & versions

Version map

Criterion presentation 69 min 69 minutes is attached only to the named Criterion presentation. No unsupported cut, score, territory, frame rate, source element, or restoration detail is inferred. Source: The Criterion Collection — The Cameraman Runtime reference · Checked 2026-08-21

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