In Tarantino’s Deathproof half of Grindhouse Kurt Russell gives the audience a great deadpan look just before he gets into his car and begins his murder spree.
I’ll second the mention of JCVD. The story isn’t great, but the monologue from Jean-Claude Van Damme is one of the best things I saw in 2008. The scene is just stunning in it’s honesty and ferocity.
I’ve seen that movie several times. And it never occurred to me that this character was speaking to the camera. I thought he was just saying that to himself. If it turns out that you’ve ruined the movie for me Djscman, I’m going to be coming for you. You’d better be wrong about this scene.
In the first part of Smokey and the Bandit Burt Reynolds smiles at the camera while hiding from a small town cop who was chasing him. I’m half convinced that the scene in Death Proof is a homage because the expression is identical.
I’d also add the brief conversation Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back about how you do some movies just as a favor for friends, followed by a quick look at the camera/audience.
I’ve been wrong before: turns out that Red One from Star Wars (the guy who says, “No, it did not go in,”) and the dad from ALF were actually played by different actors. May your memories of a film like Kindergarten Cop be enriched and not sullied.
I suppose it would be cheating to categorize noir narrators as fourth-wall breakers.
I don’t think any voice over generally counts as breaking the fourth wall, since it’s sort of understood as either the main character’s thoughts, like in Blade Runner, or some omniscient observer, like in say, Barry Lyndon. It’s part of the storytelling, and therefore behind the wall.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is an exception, of course - the voice-over breaks the fourth wall many times.
Not really one of my favorites, but the end of Wanted. “What the fuck have you done lately?”
Has anyone seen ‘The Movie Hero’? I watched it on Netflix On-Demand a couple months ago and enjoyed it. The breaking of the fourth wall is pretty much the whole shtick of the movie, and it’s kind of fun.
Peter Stormare is in it…
Meh.
Peter Stormare is in it…
Hmm…sounds interesting!
:D
This is a good call, and something that John Hughes apparently likes to have fun with, based on Ferris Bueller (and others?). I like the way that it’s actually a little bit ambiguous as to whether or not Ducky is actually looking at US, the audience, or just happens to be giving that look in the direction of the camera. It’s something I could imagine Ducky doing regardless of the fact there was a camera/audience there or not. It probably is an obvious break and I’m just weird. Of course, you could be speaking of an entirely different scene, but the one at the end is what I remember. Don’t forget to elaborate!
Last Action Hero - I find this movie hilarious in its send-up of action movies but an awesome action movie at the same time, though I don’t remember anyone actually breaking the “second” 4th wall. Things like Arnold never having heard classical music due to his soundtracks always being limited to rock and roll, or shooting a “real” taxi twice and being surprised that it doesn’t explode were quite humorous, I thought.
The Neverending Story - This is another instance of a story breaking its internal wall, but not the outer wall, but doesn’t the narrator break the outer wall at the end? Do books have a fourth wall?
Treasure of the Fours Crowns - This is another strange, subtle breaking of the wall in that this horrible action movie was shot in 3D. There are a ton of instances of shots and actions occurring simply for the 3D effect of it all. That kicks ass. Roger Ebert agrees with me, so put that in your pipe and smoke it:
Serial offenders like the Marx Bros. and Mel Brooks come to mind immediately, but let me push on to another major one that hasn’t been mentioned: Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their various Road Pictures. Vaudeville comic training, like the Marx Bros., prompts a lot of it, but they even go so far as to call on the special effects department to help them out in one of the latter ones.
George of the Jungle, with the characters often interrupting the narrator and even arguing with him.
I’m going to nominate Black Dynamite here, although its fourth wall busting is subtle enough that I failed to notice it my first time through. It wasn’t until the second and third viewings that I started noticing that the actors are playing actors in a blaxploitation flick. Their interactions with bad actors, booms in the set without the funds to do another take, a cameraman who isn’t quick enough on the uptake to keep up with the action – these all portray a real awareness of that fourth wall, and are comedic for playing both sides of it. I think the sense of love this movie clearly has for its roots comes from playing with that line.
I believe this is called “satire”, not fourth-wall breaking. Unless the characters actually say they can’t afford to do a second take. Then it is. I haven’t seen this movie.
Scraping the bottom of the barrel, in one of the Killer Tomatoes sequels, about halfway through they claim to have run out of money to continue shooting. So they decide to start doing product placements, which then becomes a running gag through the rest of the film.
I’d say that if the intent is to tear something down, then it would be satire. They never mock the tropes in this movie, but some things are exaggerated for comic intent. Parody, or spoof – just a change in terms.
No character ever refers to the budget or the camera, so it may disqualify as fourth wall breaking. But a couple examples leap to mind in defense of it.
In one scene Black Dynamite literally has to bump away the boom mic which has dropped so low it’s in his face. You see the actor momentarily glitch with frustration but then snaps back into the scene. Only his eyes darting back to the mic betray his ongoing distraction as he tries to will the boom operator to get the mic out of the damned frame.
In another we see some very cheap extras with speaking lines, one of whom is reading stage directions as if they were lines. “Angry militant turns startled.” The actor being played by Michael Jai White is flummoxed by this, expecting for “Cut!” to be called. When it doesn’t, he fumbles his way into performing the rest of the scene.
This may sound like a nitpick, but does acknowledging the wall necessarily imply breaking it?
I was always under the impression that in order to break the wall, you had to actually address what’s “on the other side,” either by addressing the audience (Ferris Bueller) or leaving the narrative and winding up on the other side of the camera (Blazing Saddles). Simply looking at the camera, especially for a split-second and then never again, never really struck me as breaking the wall.
But that’s probably just me.
No, a look counts. The fourth wall is like a one-way mirror that the audience can sit behind and be voyeurs. By looking at the audience, the actor is acknowledging their presence, breaking the illusion that that one-way mirror exists.
Y’know, I never feel an urge to rewatch that movie, but for the Damon & Affleck scene. Oh, and the one with “I’m the Pie F**ker!”
As far as The Neverending Story, the fourth wall is definitely broken. After The Nothing consumes everything the Princess appears and speaks directly to the audience.