This article examines the acting prowess of actor Buster Keaton in Michael Snow's 1981 film, Presents. Both Keaton and Snow share a penchant for machines and draw on the threat of deformation. But Snow does not limit the burlesque to the constraints of narrative. The contradiction between body and space is no longer due only to the awkwardness of characters. The temptation of the automaton, which often haunts Keaton's gestures like a threat, is here performed by the machine.