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and in The Purple Rose of Cairo unusually breaks the fourth wall from within the film’s narrative: Mia Farrow’s character idolises a film actor she is watching at the cinema (the intra-diegetic gaze) only for him to then step out of the film and into her life. Monty Python were masters of the anti- realist moment: in The Holy Grail whenever the narrative sags or gets too silly the film cuts to various characters yelling at the film to ‘Get on with it!’ and at one point in The Meaning of Life the supporting feature film invades the feature film in the form of a pirate attack on a corporate boardroom meeting. Certain comic sub-genres, unlike more realist
genres such as romantic-comedies, have the ability it seems to destroy and build the fourth wall at will. Aside from the obvious tongue-in- cheek self-awareness of audiences and artists in spoof films like Airplane and more recently the Scary Movie franchise there are films which specialise in surreal audience address before returning to the flimsy business of the narrative.
deconstruction A particularly fascinating example is the 1941 film, Hellzapoppin. Based on a chaotic and
Hellzapoppin: surreal
farcical Broadway show and anchored by two male comedians, the film plays with the audience through numerous asides but more importantly with the business of being a member of the cinema audience actually watching the film. Anti- realist devices used in the film are numerous: the comics ask the projectionist of the film to rewind and fast forward scenes which he does; they then scold the actual cameraman filming them for following pretty girls rather than the main action involving them; they frame the narrative around a Hollywood writer pitching the story to a director (the film-within-a-film conceit); and finally they introduce fake cinema message cards asking a certain Stinky Miller to leave the auditorium – in the end the actors resort to talking directly to Stinky who, as a silhouette, reluctantly stands and leaves the cinema and the film. By the time Hellzappopin reaches its insane finale the fourth wall is left a crumbling ruin. A similar comic destruction of the ‘illusion
of the real’ occurs in Blazing Saddles which unexpectedly jumps from the Wild West to modern day LA through a riotous Western brawl spilling into an adjacent film set where a musical is being shot. In this instance the fourth wall, in the form of a studio wall at MGM, is quite literally
broken down. Indeed Mel Brooks frequently breaks the fourth wall for comedic effect. In Robin Hood: Men in Tights the characters review the script of the movie during the archery competition scene and Spaceballs features a particularly paradoxical scene which takes the film within a film conceit to a whole new level. Two characters, Dark Helmet and Colonel Sandurzz borrow ‘Spaceballs, the Video’ from their ship’s rental store and fast-forward through previous scenes until they reach the current scene, which depicts them looking at a video of themselves ... looking at a video of themselves… looking at a video of themselves – an infinite fourth-wall destruction! To get your head around the complex idea of
cinematic realism, awareness of the fourth wall represents a useful way in. By highlighting the odd unreality of film, cinematic artists can make us laugh, frighten us, and at times make us think; but their demolition of realism is never dull because it is in such moments that we glimpse the true nature of film.
Mark Ramey teaches Media Studies at Collyers College, West Sussex.
english and media centre | December 2009 | MediaMagazine 29
Michael Palin in Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life (1983) D. Terry Jones Credit: Universal/Celandine/Monty Python /The Kobal Collection
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