Breaking the Fourth Wall

Tom Brown is Lecturer in Film Studies at King's College London.

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.

• 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.