Breaking the Fourth Wall

Direct Address in the Cinema

Tom Brown

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English

Edinburgh University Press
19 November 2013

Film theory & criticism

What happens when fictional characters acknowledge our 'presence' as film spectators? By virtue of its eccentricity and surprising frequency as a filmic device, direct address enables us to ask some fundamental questions of film theory, history and criticism and tackle, head-on, assumptions about the cinema as a medium. Brown provides a broad understanding of the role of direct address within fiction cinema, with focused analysis of its role in certain strands of avant-garde or experimental cinema, on the one hand, and popular genre traditions (musicals and comedies) on the other.

By: Tom Brown
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 15mm
Weight: 318g
ISBN: 9780748683079
ISBN 10: 0748683070
Pages: 188
Publication Date: 19 November 2013
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction: direct address in film history, theory and criticism; 2. Counter-looks: direct address and counter-cinema; 3. Looks of invitation: comedic and musical direct address; 4. Le Notti di Cabiria (1957); 5. High Fidelity (2000); 6. La Ronde (1950); 7. Conclusion.

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.

Reviews for Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema

BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL is a probing study of the ways in which an actor or a character in a movie sometimes looks at the camera and addresses us in the audience. This is often taken simply to dispel the illusion, but in his book Tom Brown sensitively examines different forms of direct address and explicates how various and complex its effect can be--Gilberto Perez, Sarah Lawrence College