Fourth wall
The term fourth wall applies to the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. While the origin of the term cannot be confirmed, the concept is generally presumed to have begun in the twentieth century with the advent of theatrical realism.
Although it originated in theatre, where conventional three walled stage sets provide a more literal "fourth wall", the term as been adopted by other media, such as cinema and literature, 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 most well 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.
The term "breaking the fourth wall" is used in film, theatre, television, video-games 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 are not real. This has the effect of reminding an audience that what they are viewing is fiction and as such can have a jarring effect. 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.
The sudden breaking of the fourth wall is often employed for humorous effect, although opinions differ widely as to how "humorous" this is. Some regard breaking the fourth wall suddenly so jarring that it actually detracts from a story's humour. However, when employed consistently throughout a story for narrative effect, it is usually (and arguably, paradoxically) incorporated into the audience's normal suspension of disbelief.
Examples of breaking the fourth wall for dramatic or comedic effect:
Theatre
- In Murder in the Cathedral, by T. S. Eliot, the knights break the Fourth Wall by addressing the audience with reasons justifying their murder of Thomas Becket.
- Bertolt Brecht's alienation, or Verfremdungseffekt, was intended to constantly remind the audience that they were watching a show, with the idea that their response would be more thoughtful.
- 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.
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 honouring the fourth wall and breaking it.
- Monty Python's Flying Circus broke the fourth wall all the time, often as a quick way to get out of a bit that had no proper ending.
- Moonlighting regularly broke the fourth wall, often including dialogue that made direct reference to the scriptwriters, the audience, the network or the series itself. Sometimes, but not always, a character directly faced or pointed to the camera when breaking the wall. In the show's final episode, the lead characters returned to their office to find a network executive who told them they'd been cancelled as the sets were dismantled by studio crews.
- A number of police and detective series broke the fourth wall briefly in order to better involve the audience in the episodes. Examples include early seasons of the 1962-1969 series, The Saint, Decoy and the mid-1970s series, Ellery Queen. In the case of Ellery Queen, the fourth wall was broken to allow the titular character to directly invite the audience to help solve the mystery (a gimmick held over from the radio version of the series).
- Malcolm in the Middle is noted for its frequent use of the technique for comedic effect. Malcolm acts as our narrator and guide around his family life.
- The British series Lovejoy frequently broke the fourth wall, with the title character talking direct to camera.
- The British con artist drama Hustle frequently breaks the fourth wall.
- Matt Groening's "The Simpsons" seems to make a habit of breaking the fourth wall, particularly in a scene where sister Lisa Simpson tells her brother Bart "Cartoons don't have to be 100% realistic." As their father suddenly appears in two places within view; both on the couch behind them and passing by the window outside.
- The Zack Morris character on Saved By the Bell would often declare a "time out," which would cause the characters present to "freeze." Morris would then directly address the audience concerning the events thus far in the episode.
- The character Stanley Roper, played by Norman Fell, would occasionally smirk at the camera for comedic effect after making a wisecrack in the sitcom Three's Company and The Ropers.
Literature
- The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The first book contains a capsule review of itself; also, at the end, the supercomputer FUCKUP determines that the events are all part of a book.
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events breaks the fourth wall frequently, as the author addresses the reader, suggesting they skip over particularly gloomy parts or stop reading the book altogether.
- Michael Ende's novel The Neverending Story is initially about a boy reading a fantasy novel, also called The Neverending Story. The characters in the inner novel gradually learn about their fictional nature and about the identity of the reader in the framing story, who himself becomes an active participant in the fantasy world.
- In Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, the fourth wall is broken in a way when the events and narrative contained in the first part of the story are revealed just to be part of a book written by a mysterious character, Major Albert Knag, for his equally mysterious daughter Hilde. Later it is broken inside this story as well, when a copy of Knag's book is found in a bookshop which exists only in the said book.
- The Marvel Comics graphic novel character She-Hulk has in certain stories had the ability to know that she is a comic book character, allowing her to perform such oddities as tearing through the page and running over a page of advertisements in order to reach the otherwise inaccessible control centre of an enemy. At one time, she was even arguing with the author of her comic, John Byrne.
- Several minor DC Comics characters have had the opportunity to meet the authors of their comics, such as Animal Man and Lobo.
- The webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del occasionally has the comic's author Tim Buckley appearing in the strip. The first time this happens, Buckley is shot with a crossbow by the strip's main character Ethan, who is apparently after revenge for the times in which he has randomly been hit with arrows himself - apparently the author's doing.
- Perhaps one of the most famous instances of breaking the fourth wall is Puck's narration at the end of William Shakespear's "A mid-summer night's dream" where he states how if the audience were somehow offended, to think it but a dream "and all shall be mended". Even within "Mid-summer night's dream", actors in the play within the Shakespearean work break the fourth wall by explaining crucial details to the royalty watching their performance.
Film
- Some of the first popularized breaking of the fourth wall in cinema was courtesy of Groucho Marx, of the Marx Brothers, in films such as the 1929 film The Cocoanuts and the 1930 film Animal Crackers. In The Big Store, during a song, Groucho comments to the audience that a dress is red although the film cannot show it the because 'Technicolor is so expensive'.
- French director Jean Luc Godard constantly reminded his audience that they were watching films, breaking the fourth wall through character asides, onscreen dialogue concerning story development, and the use of loud, bold text. His films include Weekend, Masculin Feminin, and A Woman is a Woman
- In Annie Hall, Woody Allen breaks the wall by asking the audience direct questions. He has been often quoted in interviews as portraying this as homage to Groucho Marx.
- In Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick (in the title role) addresses the audience directly on several occasions.
- 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 in one of his cartoons, "Big Heel Watha", the main character proclaims at one point "In a cartoon, you can do anything!"
Video games
- The Hideo Kojima's video game Metal Gear Solid breaks the fourth wall on several occasions. The character Psycho Mantis is able to "read your mind" by reading the input of the player's controller -- which can be avoided by swapping controller ports -- and also by making comments about other Konami games saved on the memory card. He also demonstrates his telekinesis by making the player's controller vibrate and appears to switch off the television screen at crucial points during the battle with him. One character tells the main character, Solid Snake to look at the back of the game's CD case to find a certain character's radio frequency.
- The entire premise of the computer game Omikron is to break the fourth wall. According to the game, the player character is actually the player himself or herself, whose soul has been sucked into the game world by the game, where it exists as a ghost-like entity capable of possessing the game's characters. Defeat in the game world means losing your soul in the real world (although, in reality, you can always reload from a saved game).
- In the video game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, when your sanity meter in the game drops or becomes completely empty, some of the sanity effects include things that break the fourth wall, such as the game pretending to erase your save files, or appearing to turn off your screen.
- In Paper Mario, when you use Goombario's "Tattletale" move on an enemy Goomba, he'll tell you that they've "been around since Super Mario Bros."
- In EarthBound, the player is asked several times throughout the game for his or her real name, for use in the battle with the final boss.