Would you have felt the same way about the classic 1996 film “Titanic” had the love scenes, the ship sinking and the dropping of the necklace into the ocean been addressed by Rose to the audience (rather than the modern-day underwater explorers)…or if the camera crew or technical crew were shown filming the movie in a few scenes? This would have made “Titanic” a different film entirely–and one you probably couldn’t really immerse yourself in without thinking someone mistakenly sent out a working print to theaters. This process of telling a story in a film hasn’t really been common in mainstream movies–other than occasional ones with a character addressing the fourth wall. But the fourth wall has started to become a controversial construct lately in movies in the age of believable special effects and the hypnotizing effect movies have now in conveying an historical event or fictional world. Never before in modern times have movies been a more escapist type of entertainment that not only puts a person behind all four walls–but keeps them there for a while depending on the individual.
This brings to mind the controversies we’ve heard of what the psychological impact is residing within those four walls for too long and too often. The first argument behind that is the age of more violent movies where violent images can get into a person’s subconscious–while either doing no detectable damage, subtle damage, or eventually turning a person into acting out those desensitized images in reality. I won’t make this article a study on proving any of those things. Nevertheless, I think most people would agree that being taken away from reality in a movie can be both a negative and positive experience on our minds…depending on what the film is. While we’re enjoying the world of eye-popping CGI effects in many films that sweep us further away from the real world around us, maybe reviving a post-modern theatrical technique to keep people from being too emotionally attached to a film would be a wise and gradual move toward a different philosophy on how we approach modern film.
The father (or at least official inheritor) of that new technique would be the famous German playwright, Bertolt Brecht. In 1935, Brecht borrowed and expanded on a technique in stage plays called the “alienation effect” (his tongue-twisting German term: Verfremdungseffekt) that enabled audiences to view a play from an emotional distance as the actors break the fourth wall by interacting with audience members or addressing all of them about the situation in the plot. It also enabled an audience to view the play from a more critical standpoint rather than absorb themselves into the illusion of what’s perceived to be reality. As you might guess, another country invented the basic forms of this technique first. The Russians created the concept under the criticism philosophies of Russian Formalism movements that started in the 1910’s. The process of Defamiliarization (created by the Soviet critic, Viktor Shklovsky) was created to subtly prompt an audience to think by connecting words or things in a play that otherwise were strewn together into an oddball or unfamiliar way. Brecht took this basic foundation and ran with it…while later making European filmmakers realize it could be used in effective ways for the cinema.
Breaking the “fourth wall” and using other techniques associated with Brecht’s method were used for both dramatic and comedic purposes in the film world. In 1960’s European film, Jean-Luc Godard was one director who borrowed elements of Brecht’s ideas during his earlier years–particularly using a non-linear editing process that forced audiences to think more critically about the content. He also used characters breaking from a scene to address the viewer watching from the fourth wall. Yes, you probably guessed that the French would pick this up first in film.
Give another point to the Swedes and Ingmar Bergman for incorporating serious elements of the alienation effect–especially in his classic and haunting film “Persona” in 1966. Bergman was one of the first to use a technique of showing the film being filmed by a camera crew…plus an effective first scene (and repeated periodically throughout) where a reel of film is being loaded. This turned “Persona” into a completely different film that otherwise would have mesmerized people to get lost into that world of mute actress Elisabet, psychiatrist Alma and their bizarre relationship.
But wait–the fourth wall being broken was used long before the 60’s in film…and right in mainstream America. In our country, it was used for mostly comedic effect. Even the original Russian method for theater was intended as a variation on the form of satire. As early as the 1940’s, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope would frequently address the audience at the fourth wall in their famous “Road To…” movies. It was used off and on in American film for decades–but seldom in dramas. Lately in films made here, you rarely if ever see it used in either genre.
Stanislavski and his method actors are looking at us with a mean glare…
Pay no attention to those method actors looking disapprovingly at us even thinking about breaking the fourth wall and showing the artifice of film. They may be just method acting their disapproval anyway—which sort of gives a meta(non)fiction theory to this article and proves the usefulness of the Brechtian techniques.
Most people familiar with acting technique know that Konstantin Stanislavski created the modern form of acting as we know it today. Most actors worth their salt decided long ago that the method acting of realism was the best way to approach things in a film. In fact, so many great actors have employed this method (thanks to James Dean and Marlon Brando mesmerizing audiences) that film has had to stay in that “reality” pocket for decades. That’s one reason why breaking the fourth wall in drama is almost never done today in American film. How strange would it be for many seeing Robert De Niro acting in a film where he turns and addresses the audience or we see a camera crew filming him preparing a scene? The same goes for similar actor Anthony Hopkins who gets under the skin of his characters to create nothing else but realism.
Finding ways back to the Brechtian method in film and other explosively real (literally) forms of entertainment…
To be fair, video games frequently break the fourth wall in order to attempt to show the gamer that he or she is playing a game and not lose sight of reality. The only argument against that is that graphics and actual game play are so incredibly real now–using the fourth wall probably seems irrelevant in comparison. And in Hollywood, attempts are being made to make films that truly envelop you into the action. CGI has probably gone to its furthest point (outside of going toward virtual reality) in making things seem real enough where the suspension of disbelief becomes real and makes scoffing at what we used to be able to detect as “cheesy” special effects a thing of the past. Obviously, most of Hollywood would rather keep it that way so people can lose themselves in the story. But would a director be able to get away with making a film again that subtly disconnects people from the fantasy world and make them think on a different level?
If someone could do that without making it look pretentious or obvious–then it might calm a lot of the debates over people concerned of what movies are doing to the minds of people today. Using the fourth wall tactic in a comedy (or even a drama) could be used to great effect today to help bring an observer feel to the movie. In dramas, it seems to work best in musicals (and it’s been done in musical adaptations such as “Evita”), though let’s hope directors and studios won’t be afraid to experiment. Yes, I’m talking about the major studios, despite these techniques more likely being done in the independent film arena.
Having the metanarrative technique of showing the technical crew filming the film may be the strongest psychological pull in eliminating a sense of reality or emotional connection. At the same time, it doesn’t necessarily eliminate all emotional connection, but just takes you to a new emotional reaction. Using a film within a film technique hasn’t been done in mainstream Hollywood since 2002’s “Adaptation”–and that received rave reviews plus decent box office.
It’s still possible to balance these techniques with the method acting routes. If someone actually tries–we may be able to see films in a different and healthier way and not let Hollywood wrap us too deeply into their sometimes strange worlds. We’d also likely learn a lot more about reality in the process…
