Filmed in 1928, it is the last film produced by Keaton's creative and independent will before signing a Faustian pact with MGM, a deal with the devil that would systematically dismantle his genius, transforming an architect of chaos into a gag writer. Watching Steamboat Bill, Jr. today means witnessing a man who, literally and metaphorically, struggles against the impending storm—a storm that is not only climatic, but technological (the advent of sound) and economic (the collapse of the independent studio system and the impending Great Depression).

At the heart of it all is a conflict that is almost Shakespearean in its archetypal simplicity: Father versus Son. But here, the tragedy (or rather, the pathos) is filtered through the lens of cosmic farce. Captain William “Steamboat Bill” Canfield Sr. (a gigantic Ernest Torrence, towering over Keaton like a granite Golem) is a relic of the 19th century. He is the frontier, brute force, Mark Twain's Mississippi now dry. He waits for his son, whom he has not seen in years, imagining an heir in his own image, a bearded colossus. And what does he get? He gets Buster. A college “dandy,” effeminate by the standards of the time, with a ukulele (the fetish weapon of Jazz Age youth), a ridiculous cap, and a fake mustache that looks like a typographical error. Keaton, the Stone Man, is here at his peak of inadequacy. He is not just a disappointing son; he is a cultural alien. It is flapper modernity clashing with Victorian traditionalism. The entire film is a struggle for paternal approval, a desperate attempt by Willie to prove his worth to a patriarch who sees him only as a “mistake.” The two ships, his father's dilapidated Stonewall Jackson and the shiny new King owned by his rival J.J. King (Tom McGuire), are not just boats: they are the conflicting paradigms of an America in transition, craftsmanship versus industry, tradition versus capital.

And in the middle of this clash is the Face. The Great Stone Face. Keaton's genius, unlike Chaplin's sentimental and humanistic pathos or Harold Lloyd's climbing and bourgeois optimism, is existential. Keaton is the stoic man in an absurd universe, a universe that is not malicious (as in German Expressionism), but simply, magnificently indifferent. His impassive face is not an absence of emotion; it is a refusal to surrender to chaos. It is the only constant in a world of crazy variables. The sublime gag in which he tries to buy a hat, only to have it destroyed or blown away by his father or the wind, is not just slapstick: it is a philosophical thesis. It is Sisyphus trying to put on a hat. Willie Jr. is the intellectual antihero, the man who thinks his way out of problems, even when his attempts are comically disastrous (such as trying to free his father from prison with a loaf of bread containing... well, everything except a file, in one of the most insane and perfect visual gags ever conceived).

But all this is just the prelude. The entire film, formally directed by Charles Reisner but choreographed deep down by Keaton's soul, is a crescendo leading up to the last twenty minutes. The cyclone. It's not a set design; it's the Apocalypse. It's the act of God that Béla Tarr would have dreamed of, the rain of Perdition elevated to hurricane power. Keaton is said to have spent an exorbitant amount (the film's budget was enormous for an independent effort) to unleash this storm, using six Liberty aircraft engines to create winds that literally tore buildings from their foundations (built specifically to be destroyed on sets covering acres). Reisner's direction disappears here; it is Keaton's pure logistical genius that takes over. What we see is not an actor pretending to be safe; it is an athlete-philosopher risking his life for a gag. The universe ceases to be indifferent and becomes actively, comically homicidal.

And then it comes. The moment. The image that defines not only the film, but the entire comic philosophy of the 20th century, the instant when slapstick transcends itself and becomes pure metaphysical art. The two-ton facade of the building collapses on him. Keaton doesn't move. He stands still, the stoic in the eye of the storm, perhaps looking at his “mark” on the ground. And the facade misses him by a few centimeters, framing him perfectly in the empty space of a window. It's not an optical trick. It's real. It is a millimetric calculation that, if wrong, would have literally crushed him. It is the most terrifying and sublime image in the history of cinema. It is the Individual facing Fate (the collapse of industry, of his world, of his career) and emerging unscathed not by luck, but by precision. It is the Eye of Providence opening to save him. It is the ultimate metaphor: the world is collapsing, but for the man who knows his place (his mark), there is a small, precarious window of salvation.

After surviving the collapse of architecture (his metaphor for civilization), Willie Jr., the inept, suddenly becomes competent. He saves his romantic rival, Marion King (Marion Byron), he saves his father, he even saves his father's rival. In the storm, the inadequate antihero becomes the only man capable of acting. The cyclone is his trial by fire, his baptism, and he emerges as a hero who uses his ingenuity to tame a nature gone mad. The ending is a conventional happy ending, but the taste, for us watching from the future, is bitter. Me, Myself and the Cyclone was a financial disaster. The 1928 audience, already mesmerized by the first, clumsy talking films (The Jazz Singer had been released the year before), no longer had the patience for pure visual poetry. Keaton was forced to sign with MGM, where his genius was shackled, forced to make “formulaic” films and deprived of creative control. The Cyclone, in reality, had won. But in those twenty minutes of divine chaos, Buster Keaton built his monument. He wasn't just fighting the wind; he was fighting the end of his world, and he did so with the precision of a mathematician and the impassive soul of a stoic poet.