Audience Relation: Breaking the Fourth Wall of Cinema

 

Cinema of different kinds has a way of relating to the audience whether that is a James Cameron film like Avatar which at its core is a metaphor for climate change and the colonization of indigenous communities or the cerebral films you get from Christopher Nolan. Where these movies fail is by not actually addressing their audience by doing what is called "breaking the fourth wall". Breaking the fourth wall refers to a character or actor in a film or television show who talks directly to the audience at home watching or the ones watching in movie theaters. Good examples include Don Cheadle in the most recent episode of Secret Invasion on Disney+ and Tatiana Maslany in She-Hulk on Disney+. The best example is the work that Ryan Reynolds is doing in the Deadpool films for Fox and Marvel Studios. Where Ryan goes right is talking directly to the audience and gauging how they are reacting to certain violent acts he committed or even how they reacted to (spoiler alert for Deadpool 2) the murder of Morena Baccarin's Vanessa, Wade's fiancee. Breaking the fourth wall is not easy, it takes a lot of mastery and precision.

The act of breaking the fourth wall to me is like archery. You have the targets but all you need is the capability to precisely and accurately goes for your target in a masterful way. The goal of breaking the fourth wall is to relate to your audience in ways that feel fresh. You do not want to preach to your audience especially when it is about something they just finished watching themselves. Superhero films and television shows do this well because they bring new ideas to light and know how to accurately breathe life into what the characters and actors are saying. The reason I think the wall breaking happens mainly in superhero works is that everything is so broad in these universes and characters often talk to the audience to reel them in. 

If your audience is not invested then what's the point? You want your audience to be invested in what they are seeing on screen, that way the studio sees a return on profit especially if ticket prices go up. What makes breaking the fourth wall so great is it brings levity to films that can be pretty dramatic. In other words, take what Taika Waititi is doing with the two recent Thor films, especially Love and Thunder, he is taking something like loss and a terminal illness(in this case cancer) and surrounding it with humorous moments so that fans get a very varied cinematic experience. In my opinion, that is where that film went wrong. You have humor in a superhero movie but you have to be more precise with the timing especially if you are dealing with touchy subjects. Where She-Hulk, Deadpool, and Secret Invasion go right is knowing their audience and knowing when it is the right time to get the audience involved. Secret Invasion is a more serious Marvel project in tone than the other two and that works well for it. Don Cheadle's Rhodey broke the fourth wall once during a briefing with world leaders and other politicians and diplomats. Being a more serious show, the moments for breaking the fourth wall dwindle and that can be good, especially for the more serious tv shows and films.