Fourth wall

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The fourth wall is the imaginary invisible wall at the front of the stage in a proscenium theater, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. The concept has been around since before Shakespeare, ^[1] the phrase itself is generally presumed to have originated in nineteenth century theatre with the advent of theatrical realism. Critic Vincent Canby described it in 1987 as "that invisible screen that forever separates the audience from the stage."^[2]

Contents 1 Origin and meaning 2 Breaking the fourth wall 3 In video games 3.1 Tutorial method 3.2 Story driven 3.3 Physical interaction with the Player 3.4 Unusual player actions 3.5 Character awareness 3.6 Easter eggs 4 Controversy 5 Technical limitations 6 References 7 See also

[edit] Origin and meaning

The term "fourth wall" stems from the absence of a fourth wall on a three-walled set where the audience is viewing the production. The audience is supposed to assume there is a "fourth wall" present, even though it physically isn't there. This is widely noticeable on various television programs, such as situational comedies, but the term originated in theatre, where conventional three-walled stage sets provide a more obvious "fourth wall".

The meaning of the term "fourth wall" has been adapted to refer to the boundary between the fiction and the audience. "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 best established conventions of fiction and as such has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic effect. This is known as "breaking the fourth wall". 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.

Besides theatre and television, the term has been adopted by other media, such as cinema, comics, and more recently, video games.

[edit] Breaking the fourth wall

The term "breaking the fourth wall" in theatre generally means when a character is showing his/her awareness of the audience. The term originated from Bertolt Brecht's theory of "epic theatre" that he developed from (and in contrast to) Konstantin Stanislavski's drama theory. Most often, the fourth wall is broken through a character directly addressing the audience; an example is the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder's Our Town, who speaks to the audience. A similar effect can be achieved by breaking character, through dialogue, or by the characters interacting with objects outside the context of the work (e.g. a character is handed a prop by a stage hand).

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, referred to as Verfremdungseffekt (often translated to "alienation effect").

The sudden breaking of the fourth wall is often employed for comical effect, as a sort of visual non-sequitur; the unexpected breaking from normal conventions of narrative fiction can surprise the audience and create humor. A very early example of this occurs in Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle, which contains three characters who are purportedly part of the audience. They interrupt the prologue and demand to be consulted on the plot, ordering a number of sudden (and usually extremely awkward) changes throughout the play, with comic results.

Such exploitation of an audience's familiarity with the conventions of fiction is a key element in many works defined as post-modern, which dismantle established rules of fiction. Works which break or directly refer to the fourth wall often utilize other post-modern devices such as meta-reference or breaking character.

In the early days of "talkies", the Marx Brothers' stage-to-screen productions often broke this barrier. In their 1932 film Horse Feathers, for example, when Chico sits down at a piano to begin a musical interlude, Groucho turns to the camera and deadpans "I've got to stay here, but there's no reason why you folks shouldn't go out into the lobby until this thing blows over." ^[3]

By the 1940's, breaking the fourth wall was accepted in popular culture, as evident in the appealing "Road to..." movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour. Hope or Crosby often addressed the audience with a wisecrack, letting them in on the joke or with an irreverent comment about the film's producers.

A compromise to the concept often occurs in improvisational theatre, in which the audience is asked to interact with the players to some extent, such as by voting on a resolution to a mystery. In that case, the audience members are treated as if they were witnesses to the action in the play, effectively becoming "actors" rather than being a true "fourth wall." This is a major tenet of Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed.

It is arguable that this technique was first employed in the modern sense (i.e., not in which an actor merely makes a clarifying aside to the audience, or clever implied self-references are made, but rather when the fourth wall is demolished to the point that there no longer remains any significant division between performance and audience, with drama joining reality or the exact opposite depending on one's perspective) in the sensational 1921 premiere of Pirandello's play Sei Personaggi in Cerca d'Autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author), wherein six ordinary people come to the rehearsal of a play to demand that their stories be told as part of the performance. This type of fourth wall breaking is also used in "The Aliens Are Coming! The Aliens Are Coming!" where at one point it is impossible to tell what is real and what is not in the play, as the aliens end up everywhere.

The fourth wall is sometimes included as part of the narrative, when a character discovers that they are part of a fiction and 'breaks the fourth wall' to make contact with their audience, as seen in films like Tom Jones, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1963, Woody Allen's Annie Hall (with Marshall McLuhan) and The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy novels. Also, it is broken twice by Peter Pan and Captain Hook in the 1954 musical of Peter Pan. George Burns commonly broke the fourth wall and directly addressed the audience in his 1950s TV comedy show.^[4] In these situations however, the 'fourth wall' that the character breaks remains part of the overall narrative and the wall between the real audience and the fiction remains intact. These sorts of stories do not actually break the fourth wall in the strictest sense, but are more properly referred to as metafiction, or fiction that refers to the conventions of fiction. The television series Titus, which ran from 2000-2002, employed a similar technique; lead character Christopher Titus directly addressed the audience in a black-and-white "neutral space", which he used for narrating the events in the show's "Live Story".

A good example of this type of metafiction can be found in the film Stranger Than Fiction, in which Will Ferrell's character Harold is able to hear the voice of the film's narrator. His attempts to discover the identity of this woman, aware of every action he takes, becomes the plot of the film.

This technique is also used in comic strips; for example, Calvin and Hobbes "spoke" to the readers in a few strips. The Marvel Comics character Deadpool is also known to speak to the reader and even refer to his nature as a comic book character, much to the confusion of others around him. She-Hulk is another Marvel Comics character that is seen tearing through pages and advertisements, and even addressing the writer of the storyline. Characters in the comic strip Pearls Before Swine have discussed their own strip and other comic strips, and the author, Stephan Pastis, has appeared as a character.

The television series Moonlighting, Clarissa Explains It All, Saved By The Bell, and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis made extensive use of breaking the fourth wall.

The fourth wall is also often broken in both the traditional Commedia Dell'arte style or modern reincarnations of such kinds of plays, such as Pippin. Usually, the cast of players is looking to the audience for advice or support. This device is also common in many popular television comedy series, such as Boston Legal, The Mighty Boosh, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Bernie Mac Show, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Malcolm in the Middle, Oz, Drake & Josh and Saved by the Bell where characters use 'knowing' and comical looks toward the audience or sometimes even speak directly to camera.

[edit] In video games

Breaking the fourth wall in video games is very common, mostly due to the fact that the players play an active role within the game. It’s usually done as a comic relief, as a part of the game, or to increase the player’s awareness of the game’s fictional nature. Some game series are known to use this technique very often, such as Crash Bandicoot, Ape Escape 2, EarthBound, Final Fantasy V, Donkey Kong , Paper Mario, the Metal Gear series, Contact, Destroy All Humans 2, Arc The Lad III and Monkey Island among others. In The Simpsons Game the titular family finds out that they have been unwillingly thrown into another video game.

[edit] Tutorial method

The most common way to break the fourth wall in video games is in a tutorial fashion. A character in the game instructs the player’s avatar (or in some cases, directly instructs the player) how to perform a specific action within the game world.

The Metal Gear series is well known to use this kind of tutorial method: Solid Snake asks a Non-player character (ex: Naomi Hunter) for advice on how to perform an action. This NPC will then address the player (through Snake, the avatar), and inform them how to perform that specific action (ex. "press square to shoot, X to crawl"). Notable instances occur in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Metal Gear Solid as the character must input a radio-frequency which is never given in-game, but instead printed on the video-game's manual (in Metal Gear 2) or back CD cover (in Metal Gear Solid). This particular kind of phenomenon was also seen in the NES game Startropics, where the user is asked to enter coordinates that are found in the game manual. (An alternative interpretation of this technique is to prevent software piracy, with the assumption that pirated game owners will not have access to the original packaging.)

[edit] Story driven

The fourth wall can also be broken simply through story driven elements within the game. In the game Tak and the Power of Juju, the Shaman addresses the player directly as an omniscient being throughout the story. In Max Payne during dream sequences, you can sometimes see messages that say something like "Wake up! You are in a computer game!"

The narrative of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty breaks the fourth wall a number of times, by communicating to the player indirectly through the protagonist Raiden. For example, during a codec conversation, Raiden (and by extension, the player) is told to "Turn the game console off now!" Later on, the message "Fission mailed" appears on the game screen (instead of "Mission failed") as the artificial intelligence of the GW program in the narrative (and by extension, the game itself) begin malfunctioning.

[edit] Physical interaction with the Player

The advent of force-feedback and controller vibration gave a new way for a game to reach out for the player. In Metal Gear Solid, during an encounter with Psycho Mantis, the player is asked to place the console controller in the ground so Psycho Mantis himself might move it with the powers of his mind. Later, after the torture scene, the player is asked by Naomi Hunter to press the controller against the arm, then the controller vibrates as a kind of massage to compensate for the stress done on the arm during the torture. All this enhances the interaction with, not only the game but also, the story of the game. This physicial interaction between the player and the protagonist is further employed in its sequels Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.

[edit] Unusual player actions

Another common method employed by video games is to address the player when he does something unusual while playing (e.g, clicking numerous times on a character in a Real-time strategy game, such as the Warcraft Universe, or waiting a long time without moving their avatar). An example of this would be in the video game Bubsy where, if left idle for some time, Bubsy will knock on the TV screen, trying to get the player's attention), or the video game The Bard's Tale where, if left idle for some time, the narrator of the game will state that "there was a long period where nothing much happened".

[edit] Character awareness

The fourth wall is broken by the game Pathologic in an interesting way: during the last day of events, the player can visit the Theater (which is somewhat a metafictional entity throughout the entire gameplay). In a dialog taking place there the player will be presented with a choice to answer the question "Who is saying this?" either as "It is me, Bachelor" (or another playable character) or as "It is me, the player". In the latter case the NPC will show the full awareness that he is "merely a bunch of triangles on your monitor". In Shadow Hearts, the character Roger Bacon will tell the player, after having chosen a name for Bacon, that that one isn't his name. The main character, Yuri, asks him who is he talking to.

[edit] Easter eggs

Easter eggs are another way to break the fourth wall. Easter eggs in video games are objects, quotes, characters (either avatars or NPCs), levels, or any other element of the game that makes a reference to the exterior world. The references may be to a picture of the programmer, a reference to another game of the same or affiliated company, an element created by a rumor circulating about the game or a previous one in the same series, or any other entity which does not exist directly within the game world. This breaks the fourth wall by introducing an element that is superfluous to gameplay, reminding the player of the virtual nature of the game. One such example is in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. After finishing the game as on both the light and dark sides, Atton Rand will say this quote when you find him:

"I'm Atton. I actually wasn't supposed to make it into the final game, but I was created at the last minute. Blame my agent. I was actually slated for a spin-off to Jedi Knight, but I don't want to talk about what happened there."

[edit] Controversy

As can be seen from the numerous examples above, breaking the fourth wall has become quite common in modern visual arts, but it is not without its critics. Used sparingly and appropriately it can be quite startling to an audience immersed in the suspension of disbelief. But by over-use it is in danger of becoming almost conventional, especially in TV and film comedy; such that no-one is remotely surprised when an actor or actress turns to camera to deliver a slick aside to the audience.

Unless being used for comic effect, breaking the fourth wall can be annoying and distracting to the audience, and create plot holes by interrupting the natural flow of the dramatic narrative. For example, in a video game (or film), narrative continuity could be broken if a character begins talking to the player/viewer without contributing to the theme of the game. However, it can work if the character is giving "catch-up" information about previous episodes; and such techniques can be used to build atmosphere and tension, or fill in the characters' backstory. This is most commonly used in episodic genres, especially anime.

Commentary by characters can occasionally be effective even in straight drama, such as when a first-person narrator frames the main dramatic presentation with an introduction and conclusion delivered direct to camera, and perhaps interjects commentary at key points in the storyline (for instance, American Beauty). In this context it could almost be seen as a return to earlier theatrical conventions of prologue and epilogue. This technique needs to be used very selectively, since it tends to slow the pace, and can be seen as somewhat ponderous if not done for good reasons. And since such pieces are often delivered "front of curtain" (in the studio, or in the narrator's oak-panelled study, or as a disembodied voice-over) and hence separated from the world inhabited by the drama, it is arguable whether or not they constitute breaking the fourth wall at all.

Breaking the fourth wall is historically considered highly controversial in the professional wrestling business where the wrestlers breach the imaginary storyline known as "kayfabe" and communicate real life behind the scenes events directly to the audience. The most notable examples of breaking kayfabe are the Madison Square Garden curtain call of 1995, the Mike Tyson-Stone Cold Steve Austin storyline of 1998, Vince McMahon's disclosure of the Chris Benoit double-murder suicide in 2007, and Triple H kissing Stephanie McMahon to reveal their marriage at the RAW 15th anniversary show on 12/10/07. Kayfabe was breached so much in 2007 that it is no longer so taboo and is now more of a technique to induce ratings or reinvent the storylines that suspend disbelief.

[edit] Technical limitations

Although breaking of the fourth wall is usually deliberate, the technical constraints of filmmaking, or the impracticality of refilming a complicated scene, can sometimes inadvertently break the wall by "reminding" the audience that they are watching a film:

• Lens Flare.
• Something splashing on the lens, such as water or mud, such as the effects used in Saving Private Ryan
• A hand or other object appearing distorted due to being too close to the camera (if not done purposely for visual effect).
• The apparent backwards-motion of rotating wheels on a fast-moving car or carriage, due to the stroboscopic effect.
• An object or a person bumping into the lens.
• Shadows and reflections of the camera or cameraman.
• The boom microphone appearing at the top of the picture.
• A reflection of the camera or cameraman appearing in a mirror.

The above kinds of anomalies, if blatantly obvious and distracting, are sometimes considered "bloopers". However, in some cases they are inserted deliberately to add "realism" because audiences have come to expect to see them. A shot that lacks these flaws can call attention to itself as not being rooted in the physical world, making it look even more false than a physical-world shot with a flaw. Babylon 5, Firefly and the re-imagined series of Battlestar Galactica contain many examples in CGI sequences, such as lens flares, cameras shaking when a starship passes close, or the camera being hit by debris after a ship blows up, even though neither the camera nor the spaceships actually exist. Such fourth wall shenanigans can also be used for comic effect, such as an episode of Arrested Development where the families' lawyer suggests that a mole might be listening in on the Bluth Company, the boom microphone is clearly visible at the top of the screen.

Most modern computer and video games featuring advanced graphics also feature lens flares when the camera is facing the sun.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Corpsing
• Gaze
• Kayfabe, a similar concept in professional wrestling
• Descartes' philosophy - The concept of reality itself being illusory.
• Alternate reality gameca:Quarta paret

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