Breaking the Fourth Wall

Breaking the Fourth Wall BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd i 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiii 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 Breaking the Fourth Wall Direct Address in the Cinema Tom Brown BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iiiiii 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 © Tom Brown, !"#! Edinburgh University Press Ltd !! George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in ##/#$ Ehrhardt by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR" %YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN &'( " '%() %%!* % (hardback) ISBN &'( " '%() %%!) # (webready PDF) ISBN &'( " '%() )&*$ " (epub) ISBN &'( " '%() )&*! $ (Amazon ebook) The right of Tom Brown to be identi+ ed as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act #&((. BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iivv 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 Contents Acknowledgements vi List of + gures vii Preface x #. Introduction: direct address in + lm history, theory and criticism # !. Counter-looks: direct address and counter-cinema !! $. Looks of invitation: comedic and musical direct address %# %. Le Notti di Cabiria (#&*') '( *. High Fidelity (!""") ##' ). La Ronde (#&*") #$& '. Conclusion #)) Bibliography #'& Index #(* BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd v 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the sta, 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 in- 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 %. Lucy Fife-Donaldson has also been tremendously helpful, not least in suggesting lots of direct address + lms – I am only sorry there wasn’t the space to discuss more of these + 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 + lms examined at length below. I thank all the members for their input. I cannot single out individuals because of the BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vvii 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 ./0123456758519: 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. BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiii 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 List of + gures #.# The Great Train Robbery (Edison Manufacturing Company, #&"$): George Barnes shoots at the audience. $ #.! Vanilla Sky (Paramount Pictures et al., !""#): Rebecca Dearborn (Tilda Swinton) abruptly turns to the camera. #* #.$ This is England (Big Arty Productions et al., !"")): Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) looks at us in the + lm’s + nal image. #( !.# Deux ou trois choses que je sais d’elle (Argos Films et al., #&)'): Marina Vlady / Juliette Jeanson looks ‘thoughtfully’ into the distance. $) $.# The Circus (Charles Chaplin Productions, #&!(): Chaplin’s terri+ ed Tramp looks to us. *# $.! He looks again, now too sure of himself. *! $.$ Bigger than Life (Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, #&*)): Ed Avery (James Mason) blithely looms too large in the CinemaScope frame. *) $.% Make Way for Tomorrow (Paramount Pictures, #&$'): Lucy (Beulah Bondi) senses our prying eyes. )# %.# Le Notti di Cabiria (Dino de Laurentiis Cinematogra+ ca & Les Films Marceau, #&*'): the young woman (uncredited) wishes Cabiria (Giulietta Masina) ‘Buona sera’. (" %.! Cabiria looks at us. (# %.$ La Strada (Ponti–De Laurentiis Cinematogra+ ca, #&*%): Gelsomina / Masina does her Chaplin shtick. &% %.% Cabiria dances on the street to music whose ‘diegetization is weak or ambiguous’. &) %.* Cabiria / Masina’s performance is marked by excessive declamation . #"" %.) . and by crumbling self-assurance. #"# BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd vviiiiii 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 4;:9 2< <;7=>5: ix %.' The intentions of Oscar (François Périer) are revealed as he stares into Cabiria’s eyes. #"& %.( Oscar recalls what Cabiria revealed under hypnosis. ##" %.& La Dolce Vita (Riama Film et al., #&)"): the ‘Umbrian angel’ (Valeria Ciangottini) looks at the camera as the + lm ends. ### *.# High Fidelity (Touchstone Pictures et al., !"""): our + rst view of Rob (John Cusack). #!# *.! Rob checks we are still on board. #!$ *.$ Ironic romanticism – the sublime and the ridiculous. #!( *.% Rob’s + nal, open, heartfelt direct address. #$* ).# La Ronde (Films Sacha Gordine, #&*"): as he looks at us for the + rst time, the meneur (Anton Walbrook) de+ nes his vision ‘en rond’. #%! ).! A + lm camera and boom microphone enter shot. #%$ ).$ ‘La Fille’ (Simone Signoret) appears on the carousel’s ‘street’. #%* ).% The meneur sings to us. #%) ).* The meneur cues the start of a new episode. #*( ).) Alfred (Daniel Gélin) reveals his motivations direct to us. #)! '.# Magnolia (New Line Cinema et al., #&&&): Claudia (Melora Walters) smiles through her tears in the + lm’s + nal image. #'# '.! Submarine (Film% et al., !"#"): the adolescent hero (Craig Roberts) welcomes us (sort of) into his world. #'* '.$ Eden Lake (Rollercoaster Films & Aramid Entertainment, !""(): the monstrous Brett (Jack O’Connell) breaks the fourth wall in the + nal frames. #') '.% ! Months, " Weeks and # Days (Mobra Films et al., !""'): another concluding image – Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) acknowledges our intruding presence. #'' BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd iixx 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 Preface He wants realism? I’m a grown man, talking to the camera, in a fucking womb! Steve Coogan in A Cock and Bull Story (!""*) This study examines characters in movie + ctions who appear to acknowledge our presence as spectators; they seem to look at us. It is often assumed that, for narrative + lmmaking, this destroys the illusion of the story world and, by acknowledging the technology behind the cinema (i.e. the camera), dis- tances us from the + ction. While this book considers a range of approaches to direct address, I will favour + lms in which this is not the case: + lms in which this form of what may be called ‘direct address’ can be said to intensify our relationship with the + ction. First a note on terminology. The clumsiness and imprecision of the phrase ‘direct address’ have become increasingly apparent to me in writing this study and in discussing the topic with others over a number of years. Looking at the + lm audience is clearly never ‘direct’ in any material sense; it is also rare that its e, ect or meaning is as obvious as ‘direct’ implies. ‘Address’ is scarcely better, as it implies the communication of some statement (its primarily verbal connotations also sit uneasily with the wordless examples examined here), and follows on so clearly from ‘direct’ as to risk being tautologous. Such disclaim- ers aside, I have chosen to continue using ‘direct address’ for intellectual and more pragmatic reasons – the main pragmatic reason being that, normally, people instinctively understand to what ‘direct address’ refers. That said, the terms are clearly not absolute. This is my starting point for interrogating the nature of a particular moment’s ‘address’ of its audience, and the extent of its ‘directness’. These questions of terminology were raised most vividly at the ‘Continuity and Innovation Conference’ at the University of Reading (September !""() BBROWNROWN BBREAKINGREAKING PPRINT.inddRINT.indd x 113/03/20123/03/2012 009:299:29 ?>5<./5 xi when, in the midst of researching this topic, I was lucky enough to hear Gilberto Perez’s keynote paper, entitled ‘Looking at the Camera’.1 Perez’s focus is, in a sense, far clearer than mine. ‘Looking at the camera’ is the material fact behind direct address, our ability to discern it circumscribed only by the extent to which the on-screen performer’s eye-line is or is not clear. However, Perez’s focus is also broader than mine, as it includes direct address but is not limited to it (he also considers ‘axial’ shot-reverse-shots, as well as examples in which the camera being looked at is meant to occupy the posi- tion of a person or an object within the + lm world – as, for example, in what some may describe as ‘subjective’ or optical point-of-view [POV] shots. There are also problems in Perez’s seemingly clearer choice of words. Yes, an actor looking at the camera may be a material fact, but when we come to discuss a + ctional character looking at the camera, such assurance crumbles. To quote V. F. Perkins and an essay particularly important to the chapter on La Ronde (#&*"): I have been more conscious than ever of some problems attached to our use of the word ‘camera’ to deal with the mobility of frame and viewpoint in movies.

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