In the opening moments of Vladimir, Netflix’s new erotic drama series, the protagonist M (Rachel Weisz) is sprawled on a couch in her negligee, writing in her notepad. She leans towards the camera, then stares into the lens to address you, the viewer, on your couch.

In film and television, this is called “breaking the fourth wall”. It is a ploy of metafiction: a kind of self-aware mode of storytelling.

The fourth wall is the invisible plane through which the camera observes the action. To break the fourth wall is to play with – or sever – audiences’ suspension of disbelief, and abandon the norms of screen narration.

The history of breaking the fourth wall is almost as long as the history of cinema itself. Edwin S. Porter’s film The Great Train Robbery ends with an outlaw firing his gun directly towards the camera. Back in 1903, audiences ducked for cover.

Nearly a century later, director Martin Scorsese paid homage to Porter in Goodfellas (1990) in a scene where Mobster Tommy DeVito (Jo Pesci) fires his gun directly at the screen. Here, the fourth wall break is used in an existential moment for Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) – rather than for pure shock.

In fact, the shock value of the technique has depleted over time, as audiences have become more media literate.

Making the invisible visible

The fourth wall breaks from early cinema fast disappeared with the industrialisation of the medium.........

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