Deadpool, a spinoff movie from the X-Men series of films, is due to open in theaters on February 12th. Deadpool is a relatively obscure but deeply beloved character (obscure, that is, in the mainstream) who is known for his foul mouth, his wisecracks, and his Devil-may-care attitude. But the most famously appealing conceit of Deadpool is that he himself, at some point in his adventures, learned that he was a comic book character. He can look through the page, address the reader directly, and comment actively on his role in his own story.
The Deadpool feature film seems to retain that conceit, allowing Deadpool to narrate his own story from a detached perspective; the character appears to be watching the film along with the audience. In a world wherein a dozen superhero films are released every year, a detached and bemused outsiders’ commentary might just be what the genre needs.
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Of course, breaking the fourth wall is not a new conceit in feature films, and it has been used to great comedic and dramatic effect in many films over the decades. There are few wittier things a film can do than to somehow comment on themselves as belonging to a certain medium. Some of the best films ever made not only manage to tell compelling stories, but, in a parallel fashion, also be essays on the cinematic form. They are movies about themselves. This is all Jean-Luc Godard did. In a way, it’s all Quentin Tarantino does.
The following films are equipped with metaphysical wrecking balls, and are all eager to tear down that fourth wall, revealing the nuts and bolts of how we watch movies. The practice is always fun, and the filmmakers who do it are usually pretty dang smart about it.
Slideshow: Ten Great Movies That Broke the Fourth Wall
Top Image: 20th Century Fox
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia, and Blumhouse. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
10 Great Movies That Broke The Fourth Wall
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Blazing Saddles (1974)
Mel Brooks was a master at breaking the fourth wall for comedic reasons, and his most famous example might be from his 1974 epic Blazing Saddles. In the climax of the film, the characters all get into a massive brawl that eventually spills off the set and into the sets of other movies. The final shootout between the hero and the villain takes place in front of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood where Blazing Saddles is playing, and where the characters watch themselves on screen.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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Spaceballs (1987)
Commenting on the gross over-commercialization of Star Wars, Spaceballs depicts characters flaunting and playing with the film's own tie-in merchandise. The villain plays with his own toys, the Yoda character run a merchandise shop out of his cave, and, in the film's most metaphysical moment, several characters watch a VHS tape of the movie, eventually fast-forwarding to the very scene they're in at that moment.
Photo: MGM
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Henry V (1944)
Laurence Olivier's film version of Shakespeare's Henry V features a brilliant wall-breaking conceit. The film begins as a backstage drama, wherein we witness actors putting on Shakespeare's play at The Globe. As the play/film continues, however, the stage elements begin to melt away, and eventually we're no longer on stage, and just watching a movie.
Photo: Eagle-Lion Distributor
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The Holy Mountain (1973)
No one likes a metaphysical prank better than arthouse giant Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose midnight freakout The Holy Mountain features a cadre of interplanetary beings who go on a spiritual quest together (amongst many, many other things). At the film's end, Jodorowsky, eager to leave us with a grin, commands, from on screen, to pull the cameras back and reveal that it was all just a movie after all.
Picture: ABCKO Records
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Persona (1966)
One of the best films ever made, Ingmar Bergman's Persona uses film as a weapon to fight off reason and present the abstract as a new language. The film's very first shot is a projector lamp firing up, revealing the artificiality of what we're about to see. If that's not enough, Bergman and his photographer, Sven Nyqvist, also appear at the film's end, filming the characters as they disperse. It's a movie, friends. The artificiality is part of the story.
Picture: MGM
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Anomalisa (2015)
Charlie Kaufman's Oscar-nominated animated film features a customer service author who seems to have fallen in love with a plain-looking woman while on a business trip away from his wife. The film is animated, and we're constantly aware of the little seams in the character's faces where their mouth parts are removed and replaced during the animation process. Throughout the film, however, the characters become aware of those seams as well...
Picture: Paramount
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Funny Games (1997 & 2007)
Michael Haneke made the same film twice, once in German and once in English, to illustrate the way audiences consume movies. In both versions, a pair of white-clad ruffians invade the home of a bourgeois couple to torture and main and perhaps kill them. In a bizarre twist, when something doesn't go their way, the ruffians grab a remote control, rewind the film itself, and undo the previous actions.
Picture: Warner Independent
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
One of the funniest and wittiest films of the 2000s, Shane Black's comic noir featured a post-credits scene wherein the two lead characters, played by Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer, address the audience directly, talking about how everyone turned out. Kilmer apologizes for cussing too much.
Picture: Warner Bros.
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Python's comedic masterpiece, still often regarded as one of the funniest films of all time, takes every opportunity to comment on it's own cinematic self. The narrator refers to certain scenes by number. Modern day policemen seem hot on the trail of the ancient characters. King Arthur evades an animated monster because the animator has a heart attack. And the ending is to die for.
Picture: Cinema 5 Distributing
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Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Joe Dante's super-wacky follow-up to his already-wacky horror comedy plays like a live-action Warner Bros. cartoon. For much of the film, we are presented with a straightforward tale of evil critters who take over a high-tech New York highrise. But about halfway through, the film sputters and breaks, and we see that gremlins have also invaded the projection booth. An usher then enters the theaters and entreats a patron, Hulk Hogan, to shout the creatures back into restarting the film. Oh yes, and Leonard Maltin is killed by gremlins while reviewing Gremlins.
Picture: Warner Bros.
