Today's guest, the great Dana Stevens has been Slate's chief film critic since 2006 as well as a veteran podcaster in her own right, serving as a co-host of the magazine's long-running weekly culture pod, "The Slate Culture Gabfest," which you should definitely seek out. An accomplished journalist whose work has also appeared in such esteemed publications as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Bookforum, Dana's latest opus is the passionately written and phenomenally well-researched new book Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema, and The Invention of the 20th Century. Not just an outstanding title, her book really is about all of those things cited within it, which is what makes it so endlessly fascinating from start to finish. 

In this fast-paced conversation, the knowledgeable and witty author joins me to discuss her exciting new book, the surprises she's made along the way, as well as the shorts Fatty & Mabel Adrift (featuring Keaton's contemporaries Roscoe Arbuckle and Mabel Normand), Good Night, Nurse! (with Arbuckle and Keaton), and the certified classic Keaton feature Sherlock, Jr. The kind of episode you'll want to listen to with a pen and a sheet of paper so you can make a note of all of the terrific titles Dana references and recommends from its earliest moments, silent film buffs, in particular, are sure to appreciate this one.

Referenced & Related:

Dana Stevens on Twitter 

Dana's Podcast: Slate Culture Gabfest & Slate Author Page 

Camera Man: Buster Keaton, The Dawn of Cinema, and The Invention of the Twentieth Century by Dana Stevens (ad link)

Camera Man at Simon & Schuster 

An Excerpt from the Book on "Why Women in Hollywood Had More Power in 1916 Than They Do Now" 

Links to the 3 Main Films Discussed on YouTube: Fatty and Mabel Adrift, Good Night, Nurse!, & Sherlock, Jr. 

Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow - a documentary in 3 parts. (Link to Episode 1 on YouTube)

Mabel Normand's Official Website & Mabel Normand's Complete Available Filmography YouTube Playlist 

Dana's Recommended Bonus Shorts: The Knockout, Mabel's Strange Predicament, & One Week 

Other Books Referenced: My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin, Fun City Cinema by Jason Bailey, Mike Nichols by Mark Harris, 101 Must-See Movie Moments by Nell Minow, Scorsese on Scorsese by David Thompson and Ian Christie (affiliate links)

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