One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a reader was to watch a ton of Laurel and Hardy before delving into the works of Samuel Beckett. Not only did that tip introduce me to a whole new world of deconstructable silliness that I could unpack with the aid of my then-trusty bong, but it took the intimidating edge off of reading Krapp’s Last Tapes and More Pricks Than Kicks. To this day, I have a hard time picturing Vladimir and Estragon as anything but a beanpole and butterball in bowler hats, but that advice helped me tune into on Beckett’s bleak humor.

Tomorrow and Wednesday night, Cinema Project goes one step further with a screening of Beckett’s 1965 film, Film, which stars one of the funniest men of the 20th century, Buster Keaton. Film is being shown as part of “Inventing Obscurities,” along with 10 short short films by Stuart Sherman and Just Words by Louise Bourque. This essay explores the Beckett/Keaton relationship in relationship to the dialogue-free Film (nobody can do dialogue-free better than Keaton) with facts like “It has even been suggested that the inspiration for Waiting for Godot might have come from a minor Keaton film called The Loveable Cheat in which Keaton plays a man who waits endlessly for the return of his partner—whose name interestingly enough was Godot.” (Come on! That’s totally interesting!)

Cinema Project does a great job of getting the best prints possible for their screenings, so I don’t feel like I’m stepping onto their toes too much by posting this clip of middling quality from the beginning of Film. Enjoy.

Inventing Obscurities—Beckett, Bourque, & Sherman screens at New American Art Union, 922 SE Ankeny, Tues Dec 11 & Wed Dec 12, 7:30 pm, $3-6.