Fourth Wall Breaks as a Storytelling Tool - Man Bites Dog (1992), Close-Up (1990), and The Holy Mountain (1973)

The majority of films fashion themselves in such a way to reach maximal immersion. It is often said that the technical aspects of filmmaking are at their best, when they are so well-integrated that the audience doesn’t even realize they are present. Rather, they prop up the story in a way with the most “lubrication” possible, so that the story can occur more naturally to the audience.

It is because of this very common sentiment, that I find it so interesting when films explicitly remind the audience that they are indeed watching a film. When the story that is being told, is elevated by the viewer being ripped away from a distant point of comfort. Not in terms of a character breaking the fourth wall directly, but rather when the facade of the technicalities of filmmaking are dissolved and the viewer is left to remember that what they are watching, is a creation of fallible humans. I’ll use this post to discuss three films which use this storytelling technique in very interesting, very different ways.

*Man Bites Dog (1992)* is a French student-made black comedy mockumentary, following a serial killer and his crimes. The nature of mockumentaries already embody this concept I’m talking about, but I think this film really takes it up to another level. From the very start, viewers will feel the absurdity of documentarians shooting murders as if they are blasé occurrences of a profession. We understand that by being there, by not contacting the authorities, the documentarians become complicit in these crimes. This tension, played mostly for humor in the first half of the film, ramps up drastically towards many scenes in the latter half being absolutely brutal to watch, eliminating any possible empathy the audience has for the documentarians.

One exceptional usage of the technique I am talking about here, is a scene taking place in a factory. The crew are searching for a misplaced item, and the shot focuses on the killer monologuing. Interestingly, we can not hear him, and only hear footsteps. Soon, we see the sound guy appear, and the audio of the killer slowly coming into focus. In this scene, the ramblings of a madman were only given meaning by the choice of people to listen to him.

This draws to line the central question of this film - how are audiences complicit in violence when we support a hyper-violent media landscape? Critics of hyper-violence may criticize filmmakers for showcasing such acts of violence. Man Bites Dog asks the question, if filmmakers offer meaning to violence, do film viewers then codify that meaning in society?

*Close-Up (1990)* is an Iranian documentary which follows a man who fraudulently claims to be a known Iranian director to ingratiate himself towards a wealthy family, and the subsequent court case. Shot in a fascinating way, the film features direct courtroom footage, alongside reenactments of events played by the very same people involved in the real world.

This dichotomy draws fascinating questions on the nature of documentaries. What is it, exactly, that differentiates a film from a documentary? It seems as if Close-Up is in a way, arguing that there may not be a difference. That, ontologically speaking, you are documenting whenever you are pointing a camera at something, whether the subjects are “acting” or not.

This storytelling technique is taken to its apex at the climax of the film, where the impersonator meets the director he was impersonating. Shot from far off, the scene feels as if we are a distant observer intruding on a moment of privacy. As they first meet, their microphones glitch in and out, and we can only hear very brief moments of their conversation, less than whole words at a time. The filmmakers mutter over the technical problems, despite this being an artistic decision made in post.

The effect this has on the film is so deeply sublime. It feels like the apex of the impersonators entire life, and his first true moment of validation. As if the moment was so pure and so personal to him, that God himself reached down to mess with the audio equipment, so that that moment could only belong to him.

These first two films, being mockumentaries and documentaries respectively, are already “self-aware” that they themselves are films. What might this type of storytelling look like in a non-documentary style film? For this, I will discuss *The Holy Mountain (1973)*, and with it, perhaps the most iconic fourth wall break in all of cinema. This film is a kaleidoscopic visual parable on the nature of spirituality and the pitfalls of humanity. Largely eschewing traditional plot, it conveys meaning through extremely stylized visual metaphor.

In the final moments of this experience, jist before our cast summits The Holy Mountain, the lead character (who is also the director, Alejandro Jodorowsky) instructs the camera to zoom back, revealing the nature of the film set.

Here, Jodorowsky doubles down on the importance of the symbolism in this film. He directly reminds the audience that the film is not the real world. By removing the catharsis of a traditional ending, Jodorowsky makes the point that the true conclusion to The Holy Mountain, is the audience embodying its’ themes in real life. By reminding us that it is a film, Jodorowsky also reminds us that is in fact not a film, but a man opening up very deep parts of his psyche for the world to see, and hopefully learn from.

I would love to hear your guys’ thoughts on these films, or any other films which do these “technical fourth wall breaks”. I also might liken what I’m talking about to The House of Leaves. Where the media takes advantage of the audiences familiarity with a medium and uses it against them to form something new and emergent.