Fourth wall: Difference between revisions

Specifically in a proscenium theater, the term fourth wall applies to the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a theater through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. In an arena theater, or theater-in-the-round, all four walls are in effect "fourth walls." One also speaks of a fourth wall in fictional realms, in literature, movies, television, radio, comic books, and other forms of entertainment.

The term signifies the suspension of disbelief by the audience, who are looking in on the action through the invisible wall. The audience thus pretends that the characters in the story are real "living" beings in their own world, and not merely actors performing on a stage or studio set, or written words on the pages of a book. In order for the fourth wall to remain intact, the actors must also, in effect, pretend that the audience does not exist, by staying in character at all times and by not addressing the audience members directly. Most such productions rely on the fourth wall.

The term breaking the fourth wall is used in film, theater, television, and literary works; it refers to a character directly addressing an audience, or actively acknowledging (through breaking character or through dialogue) that the characters and action going on is not real.

Examples of breaking the fourth wall include:

Theater

• In ancient Greek comedy, the chorus would sometimes address the audience and give them reasons to give the play first prize. An example is Aristophanes' The Birds, in which the chorus of birds threatens to defecate on the heads of audience members if they vote for another play.
• In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the character Puck addresses the audience, asking for forgiveness if the story was offensive. Shakespeare's Richard III has asides to the audience also.
• Bertolt Brecht's alienation, or Verfremdungseffekt, which was intended to constantly remind the audience that they were watching a show, with the idea that their response would be more thoughtful.
• Thornton Wilder's stage play Our Town includes the character of the Stage Manager, who stands at the side of the stage and addresses the audience directly. The other characters in the play cannot see or acknowledge the narrator's existence. The play is presented on a bare stage with rudimentary props, such as a balcony scene played on a stepladder.
• In Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, the fourth wall is not even there to be broken down. Some actors are getting ready for rehearsal when six characters whose author has died, leaving them incomplete, enter the room. The director decides to include the characters in the play they are rehearsing and soon all the lines between fiction and reality have disappeared.
• In Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, two actors who play critics are sitting in the audience and reviewing the play as it progresses ultimately become involved in the plot.
• At the end of Branislav Nusic's The Cabinet Minister's Wife, the protagonist orders the audience to get out so that they would not watch her misery.
• In pantomime, characters frequently address remarks to the audience, and sometimes encourage the audience to become directly involved in the unfolding of the story, as in the rescue of Tinker Bell (see below).
• There is a style of comedy in which comedians act out a play but "ham it up" pretending to make mistakes, have out-of-character arguments, have accidents and interact with the audience. The audience is left uncertain as to what is really accidental and what is real.

Radio and Television

• The Pirandello play was parodied in a Goon Show episode entitled "Six Charlies in Search of an Author," in which the characters seize the typewriter from one another to write in miraculous escapes, suddenly acquired weapons, descriptions of their own bravery, and the like. All of the Goon Show plots alternated between honoring the fourth wall and breaking it.
• The Jack Benny Show on radio and television often broke the fourth wall, as did The Ernie Kovacs Show, Burns and Allen, Monty Python, the Monkees, Moonlighting, It's Garry Shandling's Show, The Bernie Mac Show, Malcolm in the Middle, Hustle, Lovejoy and The Simpsons. It has also been used in countless children's shows such as Taz-mania, Dangermouse and Microsoap.
• A variant on "breaking the fourth wall" that does not involve speaking to the audience appeared in an comedy sketch on the HBO series Mr. Show. In the sketch, David Cross plays an actor auditioning for a role by performing a scene from a play about an actor auditioning for a role. The auditioners are unsure when the prospective actor is "in character" and when he is actually talking to them.
• In the television show French & Saunders, actresses Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders would frequently break character to address each other within the context of an actual scene. In one example, the two are spoofing the film Thelma & Louise, when out of the blue they slip into their natural British accents and begin questioning whether or not their Southern accents are believable.
• In the television show Clueless, characters would often inexplicably make references to the fact that they were on a T.V. program without actually breaking character. In a murder mystery episode, for example, character Dionne exclaims: "I know what the murderer's plan is! He's killing off all of the semi-regulars!"
• In the television show It's Garry Shandling's Show, the fourth wall was virtually nonexistent. The sets were unabashedly artificial. The show included a theme song that referred to itself ("This is the theme to the Garry's show, the opening theme to Garry's show, Garry called me up and asked if I would write his theme song"), and Garry Shandling repeatedly addressed the audience.

Literature

• In J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Peter Pan encourages the good little children who believe in fairies -- in particular, the people reading the story right there and then -- to help make Tinkerbell better, after she drinks Peter's glass of poisoned milk. The scene is derived from audience participation in the original stage version, which has roots in pantomime.
• In many web comics, such as Bob and George, or, notably, One Over Zero and Framed, the author appears regularly as one of the main characters, sometimes openly admitting to the characters that their lives exist solely for the amusement of the reader.
• Douglas Hofstadter's book Gödel, Escher, Bach alternates essay-style chapters with a series of dialogues between fictional characters. Hofstadter inserts himself in the final dialogue, admitting to the characters that they are only his creations and apologizing for using them as a voice for his own droll puns and wordplay.
• Douglas Adams' novel So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish contains several instances of Adams referring to himself as "The chronicler". At one point he suggests that his readers might like to "skip to the last chapter, which is a good bit and has Marvin in it."
• Works of Zoran Zivkovic often include the writer as one of the characters, and characters discussing the reader.
• Many Self-Insert fanfics break the fourth wall.

Film

• One of the first movies to tell a fictional story, The Great Train Robbery (1903), ends with a famous shot of a cowboy firing a gun directly at the audience. Legend says that during initial screenings of the film, this scene panicked many members of the studio audience.
• In the mockumentary Man Bites Dog the characters alternate between talking to the audience of the documentary they are producing and the audience watching the film.
• In Annie Hall Woody Allen breaks the wall by asking the audience direct questions.
• In many animated cartoons, the cartoon characters will suddenly start talking directly to the audience, or encountering a break or tear in the film that the cartoon is being projected upon, or many other ways to remind the audience that they are watching an animated cartoon. Animation director Tex Avery was a pioneer of breaking the fourth wall, and his cartoons often stated, "In a cartoon, you can do anything!"
• Chuck Jones's Daffy Duck cartoon, Duck Amuck is an elaborate and frantic deconstruction of the fourth wall.
• In Sunset Boulevard, Gloria Swanson's character Norma Desmond gestures at the camera in her closing scene and refers to "all those people sitting out there in the dark."
• In Tom Jones, various characters break off in the middle of a scene to look into the camera and address the audience.
• In Medium Cool, a gas grenade goes off very close to the camera, and a shout is heard: "Look out, Haskell, it's real!" This is a reference to the film's director/camerman, Haskell Wexler. In the film's last shot, the camera pans and zooms in - on Wexler, pointing his camera at the camera.
• In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, James Bond (played by George Lazenby) defeats several bad guys in the teaser who are attacking his future wife. The girl then runs off. Lazenby says "This never happened to the other fellow," referencing former James Bond actor Sean Connery. This is the only time in the Bond series this happens.
• In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris guides the audience throughout the movie.
• In High Fidelity, Rob Gordon (John Cusack) discusses his thoughts concerning the events of the story directly with the audience. At one point he is talking to the camera while in bed with a sleeping woman; he whispers and checks to see if his talking is waking her up.
• Spaceballs features several examples. In one scene, the characters watch a video of Spaceballs, fast-forwarding it to determine what they should do next. In the climatic fight scene, Dark Helmet accidentally kills a camera man with his lightsaber.
• In Blazing Saddles various characters look into the camera to deliver lines. During the climactic fight scene between the townspeople and the bandits, the camera pulls back to show that the town is in fact a set on the Warner studio backlot. The fight spills over into another soundstage and the commissary. The villain flees the scene and attempts to hide in a theater showing Blazing Saddles until the movie shows the hero outside of the theater. The two principal characters then enter the theater to watch the end of the movie -- which consists of themselves dismounting their horses and riding into the sunset in a limousine.
• The Wayne's World movies feature occasional asides by main characters, where the camera pans or moves away from the scene to focus on the actor. At one point, the owner of Stan Mikita's Donuts begins ranting about killing a man who romantically rejected him, and the main characters yell at the camera man to focus back on them. There are other examples including an "Oscar Clip" scene where Wayne splashes water in his eyes to simulate crying, Garth launching backwards every time he sees someone (twice), and a debate over which movie ending is the best.

Interactive Entertainment

• Many virtual reality or motion simulator rides, such as the former Thunder Road at Dollywood, break down the fourth wall. Thunder Road had the audience playing the role of a federal agent engaged in a car chase with a cunning moonshiner in the hills of Kentucky.
• In video games in the Metal Gear Solid family, the player and the player's character are frequently conflated by the other characters in the story line. In Metal Gear Solid, one of the protagonist's opponents (Psycho Mantis) is psychic, and makes reference to how many times you have saved onto the memory card as well performing other fourth wall breakers.
• Many Role-playing games have out of character tutorial or help dialogue explaining controller movements, or mentioning game elements when no fictional equivalent exists (Hit points, Limit Breaks, etc).
• In the Monkey Island and Simon the Sorcerer series of adventure games, the player's character often make humorous comments directed at the players behind the screen.

See also

• Audience participation
• Heckling