Fourth-Wall Breakthroughs
It’s rare…well, relatively rare in films today for an actor to stop the action and converse directly with the audience. Most people think of this tactic as theatrical or uncinematic or bothersome, I gather. And if it isn’t done right (and I mean with exactly the right touch and emphasis), it can be excruciating. I’m trying to think, in any event, of my favorite moments along these lines as well as my least favorite.
Topping the list, for now, is a scene when Dirk Bogarde addresses the audience in the opening moments of Rainer Werner Fassbinder‘s Despair. Bogarde has explained to us what a slow and tedious person his attractive wife is. (“Intelligence,” he tells her, “would take the bloom off your carnality.”) And when his wife proves this to us with some line or action, Bogarde looks at us with a sigh and delivers a “see?” gesture with his open hand. Or something like that.
Second-ranked are the several fourth-wall asides in Tony Richardson‘s Tom Jones (’63). Followed by Woody Allen‘s bitching to the audience in Annie Hall about a loudmouthed professor going on about Marshall McLuhan in a theatre line. These are the three that pop out.
I think there’s a rule about fourth-wall breakthroughs having to occur in the first act, and probably as early as possible in that act. Right?
The only time I can recall an actor eyeballing the audience for the first time outside of the first 10 or 15 minutes is a moment in the third act of Treasure of Sierre Madre. Walter Huston is being attended to by a couple of beautiful young women in a Mexican village, and after one leans over and gives him an amorous indication, Huston gives us a “whoo boy!” expression. He’s basically saying, “I don’t believe I’ve got it this good or have gotten this lucky at my age, but you and I both know there’s no way I’m passing this up.”
FUNNY GAMES has a couple of moments that very effectively break the fourth wall.
Come to think of it, the whole point of Funny Games is to make us understand that people are being tortured and taunted and killed as a game for the audience to enjoy or not, and that the fourth-wall breakthroughs by the two young killers are the key device that informs us of this.
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Alfie. Works outstandingly well in that, I think.
“Blazing Saddles”
“Why am I asking you?”
Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
TRADING PLACES – love Eddie’s look at the camera while Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy are explaining commodities.
Bluto looking back at the audience as he’s spying on the sorority sister in ANIMAL HOUSE
worst – there was some POS film about sixties youth (can’t remember the name) that starred Robert Downey Jr, Winona Ryder, and Kiefer Sutherland – at the end, Kiefer looks at the camera and says “This film is for us!” Speak for yourself, pal. Most useless breaking of the fourth wall that I can recall.
George Lazenby’s “This never happened to the other fella” in ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.
The Stranger in The Big Lebowski. Although I have to agree that the best use of this device is Alfie.
Who directly addresses the audience — i.e., the people watching the Woody Allen film, I mean — in The Purple Rose fo Cairo?
“I’ve got to stay here, but there’s no reason why you folks shouldn’t go out into the lobby until this thing blows over.”
Groucho delivers this quip fairly late into Horse Feathers, which likely proves that such a “first act rule” must exist.
Any number of horror films feature characters fixing their gaze on the audience to create frissons… Walter Huston (again) in The Devil and Daniel Webster, Arthur Shields in The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll and Elisha Cook at the end of House on Haunted Hill.
Liotta at the end of Goodfellas.
Fight Club is my favorite use of it.
I hated it in that Larry David Woody Allen movie.
Steve Coogan in 24 Hour Party People. The best.
Favs:
Ferris Bueller
Goodfellas
25th Hour
Animal House
DeafEars – that movie was 1969.
Two favorites: from TAMPOPO, the Man in the White Suit, addressing patrons in the theater where the movie he’s about to watch is playing, but really addressing us when he complains about not making noise in the theater, and MONTY PYTHON’S MEANING OF LIFE, after the Mr. Creosote scene, where Eric Idle as a French waiter has us follow him to a particular spot so he can give us his version of the Meaning of Life, and after this rather sweet anecdote, he starts cussing us out.
Least favorite: from PRETTY IN PINK, near the end, after Jon Cryer gives Molly Ringwald his blessing to go after Andrew McCarthy, we cut to Kristy Swanson giving him a smile, and he turns to the camera with what’s supposed to be a “Can you believe this?” look, but it comes off like he swallowed something he shouldn’t have instead.
At the end of the original SUPERMAN, the sun breaks over the edge of the Earth and Superman soars past the camera, giving us a big, beautiful smile that’s both reassuring and, nowadays, terribly poignant.
THE GAME has a great opening shot of Douglas looking into camera after splashing water on his face. Much later, the mystery man also looks into camera, saying: “Thank you. . . Both of you.”
This technique, at least film-wise, goes back to the silent era, and was at its peak in the 30s and 40s; in fact, there are specific “Oliver Hardy gaze” and “Chuck Jones glance” designations for those specific looks at the camera.
The best recent examples are on the late, lamented BOSTON LEGAL, where David E. Kelley seemingly never ran out of ways for Spader and Shatner to remind us that they knew they were in a TV show. One particular favorite was when two new regulars arrived early in the season. Snapped a doubting Shatner: “If you were the new guys, you’d have been here for the season premiere.”
“What a pisser.” — AIRPLANE!
Craig Robinson’s deadpan delivery of “…some kind of hot tub time machine.”
“Liotta at the end of Goodfellas.”
Perhaps even the entire film, with its voice-over?
Ah and Funny Games came to mind as well. I remember seeing the remake in a theater and people had no idea what they were in for or what they were seeing. There was an almost literal revolt and huge WTF when one of the captors took that remote and rewinded the film. Classic.
Mr Peel wins the thread.
If you want to get technical, this goes back at least as far as Shakespeare. He uses the technique liberally in Richard III and both Oliver and McKellan employ it to terrific effect.
Hope and Crosby were also the masters of it in the Road pictures. And no one did it better than Groucho, as observed above.
Richard Dreyfuss – Let It Ride.
Mr Peel wins the thread.
Burt Reynolds smirking at the camera after ditching the fuzz in “Smokey and the Bandit”.
Burt Reynolds shrugging to the camera before decking Robert Klein in “Hooper”.
Burt Reynolds winking at the camera before launching the fatal arrow in “Deliverance”.
OK, maybe not, but Burt Reynolds in just about everything else.
Favorite: “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang”
Speaking of “Hot Tub Time Machine”…I always liked the way Doc Brown pretends momentarily to directly address the camera in “Back to the Future” when he delivers the title line, then drifts off to the side as if it he had no idea it was there after all.
Also, I can’t believe the name Billy Wilder hasn’t come up yet.
Kurt Russell in Death Proof. Gets Rose McGowen in his murder hot rod using every charm in the book. When she finally jumps in, he turns and flashes us a “Yeah, I’m totally a serial killer” smile.
This is not Mel Torme!
As someone has already mentioned “Hot Tub Time Machine”, I’m surprised no-one already mentioned “High Fidelity”, which breaks the 4th wall on numerous occasions all the way through the movie
BEST: Ferris Bueller.
Runner-up: Southland Tales. Terrible movie, but when Justin Timberlake suddenly looks at the camera and starts lip-syncing “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier….” movie magic happened for the next two minutes.
I also liked how they used it on TNT’s Pirates of Silicon Valley.
WORST: White Water Summer, where Sean Astin filmed some fourth-wall narration scenes about a year after he made the rest of the movie, in a deliberate copy of Bueller’s style.
Mel Brooks is very good at using it for comic effect. Someone already mentioned Blazing Saddles and I really like Marty Feldman’s fourth-wall asides in Young Frankenstein:
“Damn your eyes!”
“Too late.”
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