Breaking the Fourth Wall
 

Are you a fan of this (usually) comedic device in movies and tv?

(8 minutes in)

Ive always loved this device. It works especially well in something like The Muppet Movies.

I love when the "4th wall" is broken. It's like the actor is letting the audience in on a secret.

It really depends on the scene. If I've suspended my disbelief for 2 hours in a Lord Of The Rings movie, I don't want Frodo turning to the camera and talking to me.

This device is also used more like in plays but it's not just a comedic device.

Soliloquy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But a soliloquy doesn't necessarily always break the forth wall. Sometimes it's just a character thinking out loud.

/\ First scene. Wayne's World makes an art of breaking the 4th wall.

I enjoy in professional wrestling how they do "shoot interviews." They are interviews or scenes where the wrestlers break (or pretend to break) "kayfabe" (breaking character and storyline), and address the fans or other wrestlers in a frank and distinct manner, often referring to them by their real names (instead if their character's name), and citing instances or events that happened in real life or behind the scenes (that were not part of the show or the storyline).

Ed O'Neill is great.

maybe I'm not understanding the fourth wall thing.

Could you explain?

I thought it just means that the character is talking to the audience or thinking out loud so that the audience could hear but the fellow characters around that person can't hear it.

Essentially, yes. But the forth wall is only broken if the character actually speaks to the audience, or if he breaks character or mentions that what the audience is seeing is staged. If he's simply thinking out loud or something, suspension of disbelief isn't comprised and the wall isn't broken.

It's just a funny phrase too, sounds so epic. XD

Yeah there's more than one way to do it. You can do it by speaking directly to the audience or, like Conan said, break character or mention that something is staged.

A couple paraphrased examples (that I couldn't find on youtube):

Boston Legal - A character makes a passing remark to another character: "Hey, where have you been? I haven't seen you at all this episode."

Flight of the Conchords - Murray: "Why are you always doing that, Jemaine? You're always making these smart alec comments."
Jemaine: "I think that if someone were to watch this they would appreciate my dry sense of humour and find it funny."

I used to love in the Roadrunner cartoons when Wile E. Coyote would look straight at the viewer, usually while falling from a great height after another plan has failed...



At about 15 seconds in, creases me up every time.

Ah okay, thanks for the explanation and clearing up the differences.

It isn't really comedic, but I enjoyed the final scene of Alejandro Jadorowsky's Holy Mountain, in which he breaks the fourth wall. It works pretty well with the theme, and the fact that the ending completely jumps out of nowhere.

Not related to movie

but there was a issue of the flash comics where he ends up in our world and has to talk to the writers of his comic about how to get back home. It was trippy as ****.

I love this scene:



Very Alfie-esque, ergo cool.

Just a shame the rest of the movie goes sharply downhill afterwards...

Worst example:

:laughing: Wow. He's just saying random shit. Plus the jacket and boots are horrible.

lol I agree!

I loved his attitude towards teaching kids chess and then it just seems like the rest of the movie doesn't relate too much to the intro scene.

But that cut is very big in Europe this season! :laughing:

Yeah, for the opening 30 minutes or so, I actually really enjoyed it. After that though Woody just throws totally unecessary characters at us (that English fella being arguably the worst offender), puts them in totally senseless situations and the whole movie just vanishes promptly up its own arse from there.

Fortunately last year's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger is a return to form from the man, so hopefully it was wasn't much of a blip after all.