Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema Tom Brown 9780748683079

This book examines the role of direct address within fiction cinema. Film characters are not supposed to look at the camera, so what happens when they do acknowledge our presence as spectators? It is often assumed that this is incompatible with the voyeurism and the presence - absence that defines the cinema experience and disrupts our involvement in the fiction. This book revaluates these and other fundamental assumptions about the medium by demonstrating that direct address is compatible with - and is in some cases a convention of - various traditions of filmmaking. Breaking the Fourth Wall is the first book to provide a broad understanding of the role of direct address within fiction cinema. Chapters on the role of direct address in Hollywood comedies and musicals, as well as in some 'alternative' film practices, are accompanied by extended readings of individual films in which the illusion of eye contact between spectator and character offers a rich metaphor for the problems of vision (insight, foresight, other kinds of perceptiveness) that are so often the currency of movie narratives. In examining direct address, it returns the reader to fundamental and foundational debates concerning how cinema has been defined since the early part of the 20th century, making it an invaluable resource for students and researchers in Film Studies.

About the Author
Tom Brown is a lecturer in Film, with a research focus on the 'classical' cinema of France and Hollywood. Has co-edited two collections (Film Moments: Critical Methods and Approaches for Palgrave and Film and Television after DVD for Routledge) as well as publishing several book chapter and journal articles.


Book Information
ISBN 9780748683079
Author Tom Brown
Format Paperback
Page Count 188
Imprint Edinburgh University Press
Publisher Edinburgh University Press
Weight(grams) 318g