The
fourth wall is the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a
proscenium theater, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The concept is generally presumed to have originated in
nineteenth century theatre with the advent of theatrical
realism. Critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible scrim that forever separates the audience from the stage."
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Origin and meaning
Although it originated in theatre, where conventional three-walled stage sets provide a more literal "fourth wall", the term has been adopted by other media, such as cinema, television, comics, and video games to more generally refer to the boundary between the fiction and the audience.
The fourth wall is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience. The audience will usually passively accept the presence of the fourth wall without giving it any direct thought, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events. The presence of a fourth wall is one of the best established conventions of fiction and as such has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic effect. For instance, in A.R. Gurney's The Fourth Wall, a quartet of characters deal with housewife Peggy's obsession with a blank wall in her house, slowly being drawn into a series of theatre clichés as the furniture and action on the stage become more and more directed to the supposed fourth wall.
[edit] Breaking the fourth wall
The term "breaking the fourth wall" in theatre generally means when a character is showing his/her awareness of the audience. The term originated from Bertolt Brecht's theory of "epic theatre" that he developed from (and in contrast to) Konstantin Stanislavski's drama theory. Most often, the fourth wall is broken through a character directly addressing the audience, although the same effect can be achieved by breaking character, through dialogue, or by the characters interacting with objects outside the context of the work (e.g. a character is handed a prop by a stage hand).
Various artists have used this jarring effect to make a point, as it forces an audience to see the fiction in a new light and to watch it less passively. Bertolt Brecht was known for deliberately breaking the fourth wall to encourage his audience to think more critically about what they were watching, referred to as Verfremdungseffekt (often translated to "alienation effect").
The sudden breaking of the fourth wall is often employed for comical effect, as a sort of visual non-sequitur; the unexpected breaking from normal conventions of narrative fiction can surprise the audience and create humor. A very early example of this occurs in Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, which contains three characters who are purportedly part of the audience. They interrupt the prologue and demand to be consulted on the plot, ordering a number of sudden (and usually extremely awkward) changes throughout the play, with comic results.
Such exploitation of an audience's familiarity with the conventions of fiction is a key element in many works defined as post-modern, which dismantle established rules of fiction. Works which break or directly refer to the fourth wall often utilize other post-modern devices such as meta-reference or breaking character.
By the 1940's, breaking the fourth wall was accepted in popular culture, as evident in the appealing "Road to..." movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Hope or Crosby often addressed the audience with a wisecrack, letting them in on the joke or with an irreverent comment about the film's producers.
A compromise to the concept often occurs in improvisational theatre, in which the audience is asked to interact with the players to some extent, such as by voting on a resolution to a mystery. In that case, the audience members are treated as if they were witnesses to the action in the play, effectively becoming "actors" rather than being a true "fourth wall." This is a major tenet of Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed.
It is arguable that this technique was first employed in the modern sense (i.e., not in which an actor merely makes a clarifying aside to the audience, or clever implied self-references are made, but rather when the fourth wall is demolished to the point that there no longer remains any significant division between performance and audience, with drama joining reality or the exact opposite depending on one's perspective) in the sensational 1921 premiere of Pirandello's play Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author), wherein six ordinary people come to the rehearsal of a play to demand that their stories be told as part of the performance.
The fourth wall is sometimes included as part of the narrative, when a character discovers that they are part of a fiction and 'breaks the fourth wall' to make contact with their audience, as seen in films like Tom Jones, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1963, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy novels. Also, it is broken twice by Peter Pan and Captain Hook in the 1954 musicial of Peter Pan. George Burns commonly broke the fourth wall and directly addressed the audience in his 1950's TV comedy show.[2] In these situations however, the 'fourth wall' that the character breaks remains part of the overall narrative and the wall between the real audience and the fiction remains intact. These sorts of stories do not actually break the fourth wall in the strictest sense, but are more properly referred to as metafiction, or fiction that refers to the conventions of fiction. The television series Titus, which ran from 2000-2002, employed a similar technique; lead character Christopher Titus directly addressed the audience in a black-and-white "neutral space", which he used for narrating the events in the show's "Live Story". This technique is also used in comic strips; for example, Calvin and Hobbes "spoke" to the readers in a few strips. The Marvel Comics character Deadpool is also known to speak to the reader and even refer to his nature as a comic book character, much to the confusion of others around him.
The television series' Moonlighting and Clarissa Explains It All make extensive use of breaking the fourth wall.
The fourth wall is also often broken in both the traditional Commedia Dell'arte style or modern reincarnations of such kinds of plays, such as Pippin. Usually, the cast of players is looking to the audience for advice or support. This device is also common in many popular television comedy series, such as Boston Legal, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Malcolm in the Middle, Oz, and Saved by the Bell where characters use 'knowing' and comical looks toward the audience or sometimes even speak directly to camera.
In the final scene of the series finale of The Cosby Show, actors Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashād broke the fourth wall and danced off the set, as hundreds of audience members gave a rousing standing ovation.
[edit] In video games
Breaking the fourth wall in video games is very common, mostly due to the fact that the players are participating in the game. It’s usually done as a comic relief, as a part of the game, or to increase the player’s awareness of the game’s fictional nature. Some game series are known to use this technique very often, such as Final Fantasy V, Donkey Kong and the Metal Gear series, among others. The most common way to break the fourth wall in video games is in a tutorial fashion. A character in the game instructs the player’s avatar (or in some cases, directly instructs the player) how to perform a specific action within the game world.
The Metal Gear series is well known to use this kind of tutorial method: Solid Snake asks an Non-player character (ex: Naomi Hunter) for advice on how to perform an action. This NPC will then address the player (through Snake, the avatar), and inform them how to perform that specific action (ex. "press square to shoot, X to crawl").
The fourth wall can also be broken simply through story driven elements within the game. In the game Tak and the Power of Juju, the Shaman addresses the player directly as an omniscient being throughout the story. In Max Payne during dream sequences, you can sometimes see messages that say something like "Wake up! You are in a computer game!"
Ever since Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door was released, the rest of the Paper Mario games have been known for breaking the fourth wall. For example, in the game Super Paper Mario when Mario is given the power to flip from 2-D to 3-D, the wizard tells him that he needs to press the "A" button to use it. Mario asks what the "A" button is, and the wizard just says that the "great beings watching over us from another dimension" will know what he means.
Another common method employed by video games is to address the player when he does something unusual while playing (ex: clicking numerous times on a character in a Real-time strategy game, or waiting a long time without moving the avatar). In Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, when the "fire" button is pressed while the current weapon is out of ammunition, the player’s character may make a remark such as "what do you want me to use, harsh language?" or "I could always throw my shoe." Also in the game Die Hard for the NES, when you reach the roof and open a locker using C4 making a rope fall out you can try to use the rope to scale down. John McClane will then respond by saying "I'd have to be desperate to tie that on and jump off! No, thanks!"
Perhaps one of the best examples of breaking the fourth wall is Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for the Nintendo GameCube. In this psychological horror game, as the player's character loses their sanity (based upon experiences with monsters, ghosts, etc in the game), the game begins playing tricks on the player. Examples include showing a "MUTE" icon on the screen and disabling audio output, making the television appear to shut off (by showing a quick white flash and then making the screen dark), pretending to overwrite the player's memory card, disabling gamepad input, showing bugs crawling across the screen and much much more.
The fourth wall is broken by the game Pathologic in an interesting way: during the last day of events player can visit the Theater (which is somewhat a metafictional entity throughout the entire gameplay). In a dialog taking place there he will be presented a choice to answer the question "Who is saying this?" either as "It is me, Bachelor" (or another playable character) or as "It is me, the player". In the latter case the NPC will show the full awareness that he is "merely a bunch of triangles on your monitor".
Easter eggs are another way to break the fourth wall. Easter eggs in video games are objects, quotes, characters (either avatars or NPCs), levels, or any other element of the game that makes a reference to the exterior world. The references may be to a picture of the programmer, a reference to another game of the same or affiliated company, an element created by a rumor circulating about the game or a previous one in the same series, or any other entity which does not exist directly within the game world. This breaks the fourth wall by introducing an element that is superfluous to gameplay, reminding the player of the virtual nature of the game. One such example is in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. After finishing the game as on both the light and dark sides, Atton Rand will say this quote when you find him:
"I'm Atton. I actually wasn't supposed to make it into the final game, but I was created at the last minute. Blame my agent. I was actually slated for a spin-off to Jedi Knight, but I don't want to talk about what happened there."
Another instance in gaming is in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Hyrule Castle. In the small garden area that you find Princess Zelda in you can look through the windows. One of them has pictures of Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser and Yoshi hanging on the wall.
[edit] In Cinema, Video, and Documentary
"Breaking the fourth wall" is also used in numerous movies and documentaries, such as Walking with Dinosaurs. One such instance is when a Tyrannosaurus roars, some of its saliva flies onto the camera. This technique is also used in other Walking with... series, ranging from ants swarming over the camera to Dimetrodon flinging dung from another animal's intestines, which splatters onto the lens. It is also used to much humorous effect in the Walt Disney movie, George Of The Jungle, where the characters at many times follow instructions given by the Narrator, with the villain being lifted off-screen on shouting back at him. It's also used in The Lion King in a Safari when Timon says "Hey! You! Staring at me! Wondering why you can't see me! Choose something!" Another example of Breaking the Fourth Wall occurs in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, when Jay (Jason Mewes) and Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) are discussing the need (or lack therof) to stop production of a movie based on the characters of Bluntman & Chronic - the main characters of a comic book based on the characters of Jay & Silent Bob - Holden asks "A 'Jay and Silent Bob' movie? Who would pay to see that?", just before they look directly at the camera as to question the intelligence of the audience, as Silent Bob (director Kevin Smith) gives the camera a big smile, and a double thumbs-up. Smith also uses the device twice in Mallrats: (1) when Willam Black kicks a stage support in frustration, causing a videocassette to drop into Silent Bob's hand and making Silent Bob falsely believe he has successfully used the Jedi mind trick; and (2) in the captions before the end credits, we are informed that Willam finally sees the Magic Eye picture, whereupon Willam is relieved (he can also see the caption). In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris breaks the fourth wall on several occasions, including: when explaining how to fake illness to get a day off of school, when discussing his frustration with Cameron's anxiety, when expressing surprise that his sister Jeanie has saved him from Principal Ed Rooney, and in telling everyone to leave after the end credits. In Wayne's World, Wayne and Garth frequently talk to the camera. In a scene in Stan Mikita's Doughnuts, an employee played by Ed O'Neill begins a monologue with the camera. Wayne intrudes and admonishes O'Neill, stating that only he and Garth get to talk to the camera. In the opening credits for Sledge Hammer!, Sledge utters his catchphrase, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing," and fires his gun at the camera. Glass is heard shattering and a bullet hole can be seen in the "glass" television screen, while the picture, including Sledge, is blurred. In some cartoons, such as Tex Avery's Magical Maestro, a hair seems to be caught in the cartoon (as cartoons were shown in movie theatres for many years) and a character in the cartoon plucks the hair. In the television show That's so Raven, Raven Baxter, a teen psychic, overhears someones comment on the fact that her psychic friend should get his own t.v. show, Raven says "that's absurd, who would watch a show about a teenage psychic" while staring micheviously at the audience and the viewers at home. On the Kids WB cartoon "Johnny Test", Johnny and his talking dog, Dukey, are trapped inside the movie "The Quickest and the Monkiest"(a parody of "The Fast and the Furious"), Dukey remarks "You had to watch your Dad's movies. You couldn't watch cartoons like normal kids." Johnny and Dukey look at the audience. In the movie Spaceballs Dark Helmet is watching a video of Spaceballs and asks his helper what they are watching. He replies that they are watching the movie and that when the movie is over the movie will come out on tape. Dark Helmet looks at the camera and talks to the audience saying, "Everybody got that?" In an episode of I Dream of Jeanie, a painter as the episode ends paints over the screen, substituting the usual fade to black. In the music video for the movie of the first Men In Black, at the end Will Smith says to the viewing audience, "Sorry", before he presses a button on the Neuralizer. The long running Cartoon Network show Ed, Edd n' Eddy has many times when one of the characters breaks the fourth wall. In one episode, Double D reminds Eddy of the time he taught Jimmy to be like him, in which Eddy replies, "Oh yeah! Didn't we win an Emmy for that episode?" In a few episodes of Muppet Babies, sometimes one of the babies would speak to the viewing audience.
(A tomato hits the screen in front of Baby Fozzie.)
Baby Fozzie Bear: Nobody's FORCING you to watch, you know!
Jim Belushi in Animal House looks back at the audience while peeping in a sorority house. Occasionally, similar incidents happened in cartoon shows like the animated series like Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and in episodes of the TV show Popples.
In the episode, "Popples Play Pee Wee Golf", Party Popple tees off using the pom-pom of her tail. The ball ricochets off the sides of the screen, then hits it dead-on, shattering it.
Party Popple: Oops!
As the glass falls away, Part Popple pulls a replacement TV screen out of her pouch, replaces it over the old screen's spot, then waves hello.
The comedy Robin Hood: Men In Tights purposefully includes bloopers in the film itself for comedic effect, such as a scene with a zooming shot that ends with the cameraman crashing the camera through a window, one where a priest accidentally slams his staff loudly against the camera ("Sorry!"), a remote-controlled gate, and a modern electrically lit "Exit" sign prominently displayed in what is supposed to be a castle in the Middle Ages. In the BBC comedy series Victoria Wood As Seen On TV, the Acorn Antiques segments (which spoof badly-made soap operas) frequently have members of the cast accidentally hitting the camera, or unprofessionally glancing directly at it.
The fourth wall is also broken on the podcast channel for the Homestar Runner website, Podstar Runner. At the end of each segment, Strong Bad panics over being 'stuck' in a tiny box (the iPod screen), and knocks frantically at the screen until it 'cracks'. As glass shards come down from the screen, he hopes that the iPod's owner 'got the extended warranty'. The famous Marvel Comics character Deadpool (Wade Wilson) commonly breaks the fourth wall, one example being when he talked to Loki, the norse god of mischief, both showing knowledge that they are characters.
[edit] Technical limitations
Although breaking of the fourth wall is usually deliberate, the technical constraints of filmmaking, or the impracticality of refilming a complicated scene, can sometimes inadvertently break the wall by "reminding" the audience that they are watching a film:
- Lens Flare.
- Something splashing on the lens, such as water or mud.
- A hand or other object appearing distorted due to being too close to the camera (if not done purposely for visual effect).
- The apparent backwards-motion of rotating wheels on a fast-moving car or carriage, due to the stroboscopic effect.
- Shadows and reflections of the camera or cameraman.
The above kinds of anomalies, if blatantly obvious and distracting, are sometimes considered "bloopers". However, in some cases these effects themselves are inserted deliberately to add realism. The Re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica contains many examples in CGI sequences, such as cameras shaking when a starship passes close or the camera being hit by debris and damaged after the nuclear destruction of the Cloud Nine liner.
Many computer games featuring advanced graphics also feature lens flares when the camera is facing the sun.
[edit] References
- ^ "Film view: sex can spoil the scene;" (review). Canby, Vincent. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jun 28, 1987. pg. A.17 . ProQuest ISSN: 03624331 ProQuest document ID: 956621781 (subscription). retrieved July 3, 2007
- ^ "At work with Garry Shandling; Late-Night TV, Ever More Unreal;" [Biography]. Weinraub, Bernard, New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Dec 10, 1992. pg. C.1. Proquest ISSN: 03624331 ProQuest document ID: 965497661 retrieved July 3, 2007.
