2:35 - "What do you think this is? Real life?"

March 1, 2016 1:28 AM

400 Fourth Wall Breaking Films
A Supercut to, if not end all Supercuts, at least seriously discourage them. 14½ minutes, plus a 2½ minute scrolling list of all the movies featured (and a brief 'post-credits' scene, obviously)
posted by oneswellfoop (35 comments total)

I was thinking about the "What do you take me for? A c—?" scene in Gangster No. 1 just yesterday. Extraordinary opening to an extraordinary movie.
posted by Hogshead at 2:17 AM on March 1, 2016

That was great - Eddie Murphy's take in Trading Places will always own this for me.

But I was surprised that two of my other favorites weren't there - the møøse / wonder llama credits in Monty Python & The Holy Grail, and the [SPOILER] "What'd you think, I'D be the dead one? I'm the fucking narrator! Keep up!" death scene in The Opposite of Sex
posted by Mchelly at 3:54 AM on March 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

B ... la fuckin ... rilliant!
posted by panaceanot at 4:30 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

That was masterful. Many favorites, but if I had to pick one I'd have to say Bill Cobb in Hudsucker Proxy.

But I was surprised that two of my other favorites weren't there - the møøse / wonder llama credits in Monty Python & The Holy Grail

Well, they did manage to include the cop covering the camera at the end of Grail. It looks like all of Python's cinematic output was represented (as it should be).
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 4:40 AM on March 1, 2016

"You know nothing of my work"
posted by octothorpe at 4:48 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

OK this is insanely well-done. I applauded.

But!

How could he not include the greatest fourth-wall buster of all time: Crank: High Voltage's Chev Chelios flipping the audience off... while on fire!?
posted by Chichibio at 6:07 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

OK, wonderful! Now, what's the movie clipped near the middle (10:12) with the soldiers painted different colors and talking about Vietnam?
posted by chavenet at 6:23 AM on March 1, 2016

There are supercuts, then there are Supercuts.

THIS IS THE SUPERCUTTIEST OF ALL TIME.

Bravo, and OP thanks for sharing.
posted by Faintdreams at 6:32 AM on March 1, 2016

I'm halfway though and already convinced I only like movies that break the fourth wall. Probably because I grew up watching the Garry Shandling show. Yeah, I grew up fast!
posted by any major dude at 6:37 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

But... it needs a werewolf break
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:08 AM on March 1, 2016

2:35 - "What do you think this is? Real Reel life?" FTFY

Interesting! This compilation increased my vocabulary of 4th wall breaking, if you will. I've never been a fan, TBH, of actors addressing the audience or blatantly mugging to the camera, e.g., winking, except in comedies and spoofs. Only slightly less bad: when the actor turns their head or body to direct an appropriate reaction to the camera/audience... but there's no other character present in the scene (but out of the shot), to whom it could plausibly be intended. This montage included a lot of shots that I had heretofore just interpreted as closeups.

My dislike of smashing through the 4th wall dates to a horrible childhood experience, when a clown refused to go on until I provided the reaction he sought. After a bunch of BS ("Yell if you want X!" Kids comply. "I can't hear you!" Kids yell louder. "Whaaattt????" etc.) this clown focused on me because I wasn't participating (hated clowns then, hate clowns now) and basically stopped the show until I did [whatever]. It was awful but I have a distinct memory of my mother explaining the 4th wall to me on the ride home.
posted by carmicha at 7:45 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

The after-credits scene in Ferris Bueller blew my 12 year-old mind.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:47 AM on March 1, 2016 [3 favorites]

chavenet: "OK, wonderful! Now, what's the movie clipped near the middle (10:12) with the soldiers painted different colors and talking about Vietnam?"

My best guess would be How I won the War.
posted by bigendian at 7:56 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Effy in Skins.
posted by colie at 8:31 AM on March 1, 2016

Hmm... shows a clip from Return of the Killer Tomatoes but the credits list Attack instead. I wonder how that happened.
posted by yeolcoatl at 8:42 AM on March 1, 2016

My dislike of smashing through the 4th wall dates to a horrible childhood experience, when a clown refused to go on until I provided the reaction he sought.

That doesn't really strike me as "breaking the 4th wall", more just someone in clown makeup being an obnoxious jerk.*

*that may be redundant
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:57 AM on March 1, 2016

I didn't have time to get through the whole thing but i they didn't include the classic wallbreakers from Annie Hall, Johnny Dangerously and Apocalypse Now then it's not complete.
posted by Liquidwolf at 9:14 AM on March 1, 2016

Deadpool has a fourth wall break within a fourth wall break. That's like... sixteen walls.
posted by SansPoint at 9:23 AM on March 1, 2016 [4 favorites]

Huh. I didn't like this all that much. Some of it isn't fourth wall, it's just meta, like the 555 number and the acknowledgement of subtitles. And some are in-movie documentaries where the characters are looking at the filmmaker for the movie within a movie.
posted by zutalors! at 9:30 AM on March 1, 2016 [5 favorites]

I very much enjoyed this, but I don't consider it 4th-wall breaking every time a character looks into the camera, and some of the cuts in here were just that. Sometimes the camera is placed where the character is looking.

And then there was a Bogart movie (edit: Dark Passage) that was essentially shot in the second person: the other characters in the movie address the camera as one of the characters in the movie.
posted by adamrice at 9:35 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I didn't think she was looking into the camera in the Kill Bill shot. I thought that's just how the shot was set up. She was just looking forward.
posted by zutalors! at 9:38 AM on March 1, 2016

Re the clown, I didn't tell the story well. He was breaking the fourth wall because he was exhorting the audience to affect the outcome of a puppet skit (one per hand, him doing both voices) he was performing by yelling to indicate support for outcome A or B within the puppet world he had created. It's not like he was having the audience "vote" for making this or that balloon animal.
posted by carmicha at 9:55 AM on March 1, 2016

I grew up watching the Garry Shandling show

The actual title breaks the 4th wall: "It's Garry Shandling's Show."
posted by Obscure Reference at 10:11 AM on March 1, 2016

Oh damn, Don't Be a Menace! I used to love that movie but haven't thought about it in forever. I'm sure it's problematic as hell, but I enjoyed it at the time. This is great.
posted by wyndham at 10:17 AM on March 1, 2016

Excellent work, especially tracing variations on themes (the lover looking away, Bond, horror movie monsters preening, etc).
posted by doctornemo at 10:18 AM on March 1, 2016

It's interesting how it's mostly men. I imagine it's partially because there are more male actors starring in movies in the first place, and that the movies they're in are more likely to use that technique.
posted by The corpse in the library at 10:48 AM on March 1, 2016

Oh, man, they missed Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, which is so, so batshit crazy. It's Steve Irwin doing his documentary "Hey, check this animal out!" thing while simultaneously moving through a plotline about a croc that swallowed a secret satellite component. So every now and then, in the middle of the plot, Steve turns to the camera, the aspect ratio changes, and he talks directly to the audience about some animal he's found. Makes sense, right? He's making his show while caught up in this other thing.

Except that there is no camera crew with him in the narrative. He's out there by himself, engaged in this kid-friendly caper, and then he just turns a little and shows this fascinating animal he just found to no one at all.
posted by Etrigan at 11:02 AM on March 1, 2016 [2 favorites]

Spectacular!

My quibble is with the Cape Fear clip. IMHO the character is talking to the other voices in his head, not the audience. I'll admit there is a relation between these phenomena but they're distinct.

Now, if I could only pull Martin Scorsese out of the echoing canyons of my mi-yind!
posted by cleroy at 11:10 AM on March 1, 2016

Pedantically, being self-referential isn't quite the same as breaking the 4th wall.

Still loved it.
posted by humboldt32 at 11:22 AM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

The shots that claimed to break the fourth wall that didn't break the fourth wall really took me out of the supercut.
posted by aureliobuendia at 12:13 PM on March 1, 2016 [12 favorites]

Irregular Webcomic today had a lesson in (one man's judgement of) what is or is not 'breaking the 4th wall'
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:31 PM on March 1, 2016

It's amazing how many movies use that same side-eye at the camera and even more amazing how well it usually works.
posted by octothorpe at 3:43 PM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

i really liked this, much more than other supercuts. I like it because it feels like the actor is looking at me, acknowledging me, and the fact that I have been a companion to their journey and struggles and accomplishments.

I've said this before but watching shows like Community make me feel like a member of the club who is always there but always forgotten - even moreso than Chang. So, to be acknowledged in this way is really, really emotionally powerful.
posted by rebent at 3:57 PM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

There are also movies about breaking the fourth wall, starting with Buster Keaton's Shrlock Jr, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, and even Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero and possibly including John Ritter in Stay Tuned.
posted by eye of newt at 11:34 PM on March 1, 2016 [1 favorite]

Incomplete. There was a complete lack of fourth-wall-breaks from The Pirate Movie.
posted by hanov3r at 8:51 PM on March 2, 2016