Author Information
Aparaajith Sharmaa, Savitribai Phule Pune University, IndiaRohan Dasgupta, Savitribai Phule Pune University, India
Abstract
The term “breaking the fourth wall” is used in film, theatre, television, and literary works. It refers to a character directly addressing an audience, or actively acknowledging— through dialogue or breaking character— their fictional reality. Fourth-wall-breaking cinema requires purposive thought and preparation. Annie Hall (1977), Ferris Bueller’s day off (1986), Fight club (1999), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Deadpool (2016) are a few films involving fourth-wall-breaks, box-office success, and critical acclaim. The researchers studied a total of eighty-three fourth-wall-breaking scenes from ten English-language feature films (including aforementioned films) using a multipronged-framework-backed narrative-analysis (Qualitative Method). These films feature characters, especially the protagonist, who address the audience in at-least four scenes. Special care was taken to apply this analysis to the nuances of films’ diverse genres-&-contexts. This research borrowed some elements from Tom Brown’s book Breaking the Fourth Wall—Direct Address in the Cinema. These were: the number of fourth-wall-breaking characters, their confessions, their honesty, and their effort to build an emotional connection. The researchers formulated additional elements to suit the specific needs of the research. These were: characterization, the attempt to retain attention, the effort to entertain, the significance of the scene, and the placement of fourth-wall-breaks in the scene. The study garnered pivotal insights into the quintessential narrative elements of fourth-wall-breaking cinema. These elements are agency, characterization, engagement, ingeniousness, intimacy, showmanship, significance, synergy. The research quantified the multifaceted usage of fourth-wall-breaks, and undertook a nuanced examination of their intricacies. Patterns, range, and uniqueness emerged among the chosen films.
Paper Information
Conference: MediAsia2025Stream: Film Criticism and Theory
This paper is part of the MediAsia2025 Conference Proceedings (View)
Full Paper
View / Download the full paper in a new tab/window
To cite this article:
Sharmaa A., & Dasgupta R. (2026) “Screen With a Mouth”: Deconstructing the Narrative Significance of Fourth-Wall-Breaks in Ten English-Feature-Films From Annie Hall (1977) to Deadpool (2016) ISSN: 2186-5906 – The Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film 2025: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 41-55) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2025.4
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2186-5906.2025.4
Comments
Powered by WP LinkPress