Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema

209 Pages·2012·1.95 MB·English

by  Tom Brown

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‘Breaking the Fourth Wall is a probing study of the ways in which an actor k
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or a character in a movie sometimes looks at the camera and addresses us
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in the audience. This is often taken simply to dispel the illusion, but in his
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book Tom Brown sensitively examines different forms of direct address and
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explicates how various and complex its effect can be.’ F
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Gilberto Perez, Sarah Lawrence College
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Film characters are not supposed to look at the camera, so what happens h

when they do acknowledge our ‘presence’ as spectators? It is often assumed W
that this is incompatible with the ‘voyeurism’ and the ‘presence-absence’ that a
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defines the cinema experience and disrupts our involvement in the fiction. :

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This book revaluates these and other fundamental assumptions about the
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medium by demonstrating that direct address is compatible with – and is in e
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some cases a convention of – various traditions of filmmaking. t

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Breaking the Fourth Wall is the first book to provide a broad understanding
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of the role of direct address within fiction cinema. Chapters on the role r
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of direct address in Hollywood comedies and musicals, as well as in s
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some ‘alternative’ film practices, are accompanied by extended readings i
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of individual films in which the illusion of eye contact between spectator t
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and character offers a rich metaphor for the problems of vision (insight, e

foresight, other kinds of perceptiveness) that are so often the currency C
of movie narratives. In examining direct address, it returns the reader to in
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fundamental and foundational debates concerning how cinema has been m
defined since the early part of the twentieth century, making it an invaluable a

resource for students and researchers in Film Studies.
Direct Address in the Cinema
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Tom Brown is a lecturer in film with a research focus on the ‘classical’
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cinema of France and Hollywood. He has co-edited two collections (Film

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Moments: Criticism, History, Theory and Film and Television after DVD) as r
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well as publishing several book chapters and journal articles.
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Jacket image: Funny Games, 1996, Michael Haneke © Wega Film.
Jacket design: Barrie Tullett
ISBN 978-0-7486-4425-4

www.euppublishing.com
Breaking the Fourth Wall
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Breaking the Fourth Wall
Direct Address in the Cinema
Tom Brown
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© Tom Brown, 2012
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in 11/13 Ehrhardt by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 4425 4 (hardback)
ISBN 978 0 7486 4426 1 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 0 7486 6953 0 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7486 6952 3 (Amazon ebook)
The right of Tom Brown
to be identifi ed as authors of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
List of fi gures vii
Preface x
1. Introduction: direct address in fi lm history, theory and criticism 1
2. Counter-looks: direct address and counter-cinema 22
3. Looks of invitation: comedic and musical direct address 41
4. Le Notti di Cabiria (1957) 78
5. High Fidelity (2000) 117
6. La Ronde (1950) 139
7. Conclusion 166
Bibliography 179
Index 185
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the staff at Edinburgh University Press for their support
throughout the writing of this book and the external readers for their insightful
comments on the proposal.
A number of people have had a major impact on the development of this
research. My interest in direct address began at the University of Warwick,
where MA courses run by Richard Dyer, Ginette Vincendeau and Rachel
Moseley directly infl uenced my thinking about the device. Jon Burrows was
also most helpful in suggesting key texts from early cinema. I must also single
out Victor Perkins, who originally suggested La Ronde to me and who has
since been very generous in his exchanges about the topic. Special thanks must
go to Charlotte Brunsdon for supervising the dissertation that was the seedbed
for this work – our discussions (and her drawings) of the bigger picture have
stayed with me.
A number of other people deserve special thanks, including Louis Bayman
for his help on things Italian, Bernd Rest for his invaluable musical knowl-
edge, James Walters for a number of stimulating conversations and Robin
Brown for his insightful suggestions for Chapter 4. Lucy Fife-Donaldson has
also been tremendously helpful, not least in suggesting lots of direct address
fi lms – I am only sorry there wasn’t the space to discuss more of these fi lms
here.
I have had the tremendous good fortune to work in the University of
Reading’s Department of Film, Theatre and Television, which maintains a
long-standing commitment to close analysis. I must single out John Gibbs
for special thanks in this respect. The department’s close analysis group, the
Sewing Circle, was of enormous value in the writing of this book, and separate
seminars were devoted to four of the fi lms examined at length below. I thank
all the members for their input. I cannot single out individuals because of the
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acknowledgements vii
collective nature of the experience, except to thank Doug Pye for his extraordi-
nary input in those seminars, as well for his editorial guidance on large sections
of this work.
Finally, I must thank my wife Mel, whose love and support make all things
possible.
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List of fi gures
1.1 The Great Train Robbery (Edison Manufacturing Company, 1903):
George Barnes shoots at the audience. 3
1.2 Vanilla Sky (Paramount Pictures et al., 2001): Rebecca Dearborn
(Tilda Swinton) abruptly turns to the camera. 15
1.3 This is England (Big Arty Productions et al., 2006): Shaun (Thomas
Turgoose) looks at us in the fi lm’s fi nal image. 18
2.1 Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (Argos Films et al., 1967):
Marina Vlady / Juliette Jeanson looks ‘thoughtfully’ into the
distance. 36
3.1 The Circus (Charles Chaplin Productions, 1928): Chaplin’s terrifi ed
Tramp looks to us. 51
3.2 He looks again, now too sure of himself. 52
3.3 Bigger than Life (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation,
1956): Ed Avery (James Mason) blithely looms too large in the
CinemaScope frame. 56
3.4 Make Way for Tomorrow (Paramount Pictures, 1937): Lucy
(Beulah Bondi) senses our prying eyes. 61
4.1 Le Notti di Cabiria (Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografi ca & Les
Films Marceau, 1957): the young woman (uncredited) wishes
Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) ‘Buona sera’. 80
4.2 Cabiria looks at us. 81
4.3 La Strada (Ponti–De Laurentiis Cinematografi ca, 1954):
Gelsomina / Masina does her Chaplin shtick. 94
4.4 Cabiria dances on the street to music whose ‘diegetization is weak or
ambiguous’. 96
4.5 Cabiria / Masina’s performance is marked by excessive
declamation . . . 100
4.6 . . . and by crumbling self-assurance. 101
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list of figures ix
4.7 The intentions of Oscar (François Périer) are revealed as he stares
into Cabiria’s eyes. 109
4.8 Oscar recalls what Cabiria revealed under hypnosis. 110
4.9 La Dolce Vita (Riama Film et al., 1960): the ‘Umbrian angel’
(Valeria Ciangottini) looks at the camera as the fi lm ends. 111
5.1 High Fidelity (Touchstone Pictures et al., 2000): our fi rst view of
Rob (John Cusack). 121
5.2 Rob checks we are still on board. 123
5.3 Ironic romanticism – the sublime and the ridiculous. 128
5.4 Rob’s fi nal, open, heartfelt direct address. 135
6.1 La Ronde (Films Sacha Gordine, 1950): as he looks at us for the
fi rst time, the meneur (Anton Walbrook) defi nes his vision ‘en rond’. 142
6.2 A fi lm camera and boom microphone enter shot. 143
6.3 ‘La Fille’ (Simone Signoret) appears on the carousel’s ‘street’. 145
6.4 The meneur sings to us. 146
6.5 The meneur cues the start of a new episode. 158
6.6 Alfred (Daniel Gélin) reveals his motivations direct to us. 162
7.1 Magnolia (New Line Cinema et al., 1999): Claudia (Melora
Walters) smiles through her tears in the fi lm’s fi nal image. 171
7.2 Submarine (Film4 et al., 2010): the adolescent hero (Craig Roberts)
welcomes us (sort of) into his world. 175
7.3 Eden Lake (Rollercoaster Films & Aramid Entertainment, 2008):
the monstrous Brett (Jack O’Connell) breaks the fourth wall in the
fi nal frames. 176
7.4 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Mobra Films et al., 2007): another
concluding image – Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) acknowledges our
intruding presence. 177
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