The Broken Shards of Liam Neeson's 4th Wall

Actor Anthony Perkins breaking the 4th Wall at
the end of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho

With three of the highest ranking members of Virginia's government all confessing to have worn blackface this week, it was a weird time for Irish actor Liam Neeson to shatter his 4th Wall with a stunning revelation of his violent, 40-year-old racist fantasy.

Take it from a card-carrying member of the Screen Actors Guild with some experience on the New York stage, one of the cardinal rules of acting is never break the 4th Wall.


Now the 4th Wall is not a physical wall like the one Donald Trump is obsessed with building.

For any of you non-thespian readers, the 4th Wall is an imaginary barrier that exists between the actors onstage and the audience, or between the actor on a film or television set and the lens of the camera capturing their movements.

Like the famous scene where actor Anthony Perkins looks up and stares directly into the camera lens at the end of director Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant 1960 film Psycho - it's an excellent example of a master filmmaker knowing when to break the rule to create a desired effect.

One of the trickier but essential skills an actor must have is the ability to perform with other actors (or alone) on a stage or set and mentally tune out the audience or camera lens and pretend they're not there - but at the same time, maintain a constant awareness of it through concentration and focus.

The 4th Wall functions as the invisible barrier that actors use as a tool to help remind them not to directly address the audience or camera (or look right at them) - unless it's called for.

Actor Matthew Broderick addressing the audience
at the end of the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Now there are exceptions of course, after all rules were meant to be broken.

Some plays or screenplays specifically call for the actor(s) to turn downstage and talk directly with the audience.

Or face the camera lens and directly address the audience.

Some really good films break the 4th Wall rule constantly, like Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or the recent Marvel Deadpool movies.

And of course there's Woody Allen's brilliant Oscar-winning 1977 comedy Annie Hall which throws the "Don't break the 4th Wall" rule right out the window.

Allen's classic "Marshall McLuhan scene" in Annie Hall is one of my favorite examples.

So obviously the rule isn't set in stone or anything, but breaking the 4th Wall is generally considered a a no-no, because doing so "breaks the spell" that well-written scripts performed by competent actors cast upon the audience during a performance.

Think about one of your favorite films, rarely if ever will you see an actor stare straight into the lens and speak to the audience unless it's an intentional choice by the director, writer or cinematographer.

It's particularly true for film or television actors, the ability to understand one's "self" and one's relationship or proximity to the camera lens, and be comfortable with it, takes years to fully understand; very few master it.

Actress Harriet Andersson breaks the 4th Wall at the
end of Ingmar Bergman's 1953 Summer With Monika

In my humble opinion, I think breaking the 4th Wall on film tends to work much better and more effectively with comedies than it does with serious drama.

But it can work in drama too in the hands of a skilled director.

For example, master Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman famously had star Harriet Andersson break the 4th Wall in the final scene of his 1953 film Summer With Monika

In a way that almost makes the viewer a little uncomfortable - click the link above and watch it for yourself.

I actually just watched the Criterion Collection edition of the film on DVD a couple months ago - simply brilliant.

From the perspective of a person who has a passion for films, and quality television dramas, I've always felt like there's also a different kind of 4th Wall that exists as a barrier between an actor or actress that one really likes, and the reality of who that person might be in real life.

If you watch a particular actor or actress for years, then all of a sudden you see them in a televised interview, or read about something they said or did - it can be kind of jarring.

Like "the spell" they wove over you because you liked a particular character they did, can suddenly be broken because you learn something about who they are as a real person that conflicts with the idea you may have had of them in your mind.

One of the most disappointing aspects of being an avid film fan and amateur film historian is that moment when actors or actresses whose work I've admired in various movies over the years, suddenly breaks that "4th Wall" that exists between my personal perception of them as a performer and the reality of who they really are.

Actor Liam Neeson as the 18th-century
Scottish clan chief in the 1993 film Rob Roy 

Over the years I've admired Irish actor Liam Neeson's work ever since I first saw him onscreen in the 1981 hit film Excalibur.

Writer / director John Boorman's brilliant adaptation of the Arthurian legend chronicling the epic saga of King Arthur, his Knights of the Roundtable and his eccentric counselor and adviser Merlin the Magician.

Neeson's brooding Irish intensity works really well in the kinds physical action roles he's known so well for - films like Taken or The Commuter.

But his quiet intelligence and remarkable sensitivity gives him that rare ability to take roles to that next level in my opinion.

He was certainly exceptional in the title role of businessman Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg's 1993 historical drama Schindler's List  - which won an Oscar for Best Picture.

Personally speaking I think Neeson's best on-screen role is as the title character in director Michael Caton-Jones' 1993 historical drama Rob Roy.

As a historian I'm a sucker for sweeping historical dramas, and Rob Roy is about as good as they get with a brilliant cast that included Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, John Hurt, Eric Stoltz and Bryan Cox.

It didn't get the box-office returns I thought the story, acting, cinematography, set design and costumes warranted, but he had great on-screen romantic chemistry with Lange and it was critically well received overall - and established Neeson as a legitimate A-List star capable of carrying a film.

The role encapsulated what I always liked about Neeson on-screen - the relentless hero motivated by a clearly-anchored morality and sense of justice that guided his choices and actions.

Liam Neeson discusses his controversial comments
with Robin Roberts on Good Morning America

That's why I found his shocking admission in an interview published in the British Independent on Monday that he once took a club and "went out deliberately into black areas in the city looking to be set upon so that I could unleash physical violence" in order to avenge a female friend who'd allegedly been raped by a black man, so disturbing.

Expressing the thought doesn't necessarily make him "racist", but the revenge fantasy he described is dark and disturbing.


Fantasizing about searching for an innocent black person to kill to avenge a heinous act perpetrated on his friend, reinforces the kind of ignorant racial attacks that have intensified in America since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 - like Timothy Caughman being stabbed in the chest with a sword in New York City back in March, 2017 by a deranged racist killer who hated inter-racial relationships searching the streets for an innocent black victim.

In some ways Neeson's words also kind of romanticize the same twisted logic that was used to kidnap, torture and lynch thousands of African-Americans in the 19th and 20th century.

Now I'm not going to condemn him as a racist, or judge his entire life based on one choice he made, but in this current era of racial division that's become the hallmark of Trump's presidency, I just think Neeson should have given a little more thought to how he described a disturbing incident when his own personal rage clouded his perception.

Maybe, as he's since tried to explain, he was simply trying to make a larger point about how racism and bigotry can manifest itself - I don't know, it's good that it's started a conversation about race.

But I'm not going to pile on the guy, Lord knows Neeson is getting enough grief as it is for admitting something like that.

Regardless of how this episode turns out for him, for me personally the 4th Wall is broken as far as Liam Neeson is concerned, doesn't mean I hate him or won't watch another film of his.

I'm just not sure I'll ever quite see him in the same way I once did, not necessarily because he said something "wrong" - but because he looked straight into the camera and broke the spell.

Sly's Unintentional Slight & The Big Short

Sylvester Stallone accepts his Golden Globe 

After last night's Golden Globe Awards, the film awards season officially kicks into high gear.

As I mentioned on the blog last Tuesday, actor Michael B. Jordan's performance in Creed is one of the reasons the latest installment in the Rocky franchise has been a financial success at the box office as well as a hit with critics who've lavished the film with accolades.

Including critic Chris Klimek who pronounced it the "Best Rocky Movie Since Rocky" .

The original Rocky earned ten Oscar nominations and beat out All the President's Men and Network to win Best Picture at the 1977 Oscars, where it also won Best Director for John G. Avildsen and Best Film Editing.

The glowing reviews for Creed were reflected in Sylvester Stallone winning Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes last night, but the actor quickly generated a backlash on mainstream and social media when he stepped up to the stage and thanked a bevy of film executives from MGM and Warner Brothers for green-lighting the original Rocky back in 1975 - but failed to even mention or thank director Ryan Coogler or his young costar Jordan.

Creed director Ryan Coogler

Coogler (who directed Fruitvale Station) is the African-American director who not only directed Stallone and Jordan in Creed, he's the one who conceived the idea and story for Creed and first approached Stallone about the project and persuaded him to do it.

Now Stallone is 69-years-old and was obviously emotional on stage as he received a standing ovation from his peers, so under such circumstances anyone might be expected to forget a few things.

But I think the point of the flack he's getting is based on the fact that he's been in the industry long enough to know that you thank the director and your costar who made your performance possible.

Especially before mentioning a long list of film executives from 41 years ago; taken in context of the film industry's efforts to recognize African-American talent from both in front of and behind the camera, it wasn't Stallone's best PR moment.

By all accounts Stallone formed pretty tight relationships with Coogler and Jordan during the shoot, and though he recognized his oversight at the Globes and went back on stage to thank them during a subsequent commercial break, in the merciless immediate-now of the Internet age the mere perception of a slight seen in the context of cultural insensitivity is a hard cat to put back in the bag.

Just ask Mel Gibson, who's infamous profanity-laced anti-semitic tirades against Jewish, African-American and Hispanic people have left him in Hollywood's doghouse for ten years.

I'm not comparing Stallone's oversight to Gibson's bigotry by any means, but Hollywood is under the spotlight for issues related to cultural sensitivity and someone of Sly's stature recognizing the creative achievements of people of color makes a huge difference to the industry - and he should know that.

Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling in The Big Short

Next up on the awards slate will be the Screen Actors Guild Awards which will be broadcast live on Saturday January 30th.

One of the cool benefits of being a member of SAG-AFTRA (as yours truly proudly is) is the opportunity to vote for the SAG Awards - which also means you get free screeners of films and television shows that are in contention for awards season.

So I was fortunate enough to get a DVD copy of The Big Short directed by former Saturday Night Live writer Adam McKay in the mail courtesy of Paramount.

The film is based on the 2010 non-fiction book 'The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine' by author Michael Lewis.

It examines the financial crisis that started in 2007 by looking at an eclectic group of Wall Street insiders who understood the deeper complexities behind the fragility of America's housing bubble and the inflated profiteering off of people's mortgages that was taking place and successfully used that information to reap huge financial profits by essentially placing bets on the implosion of the economy.

Adam McKay's adaptation of the book is an excellent film in the vein of movies like All The President's Men (which chronicled Watergate) and director Michael Mann's brilliant 1999 film The Insider starring Al Pacino, Russell Crowe and Christopher Plummer which chronicles former Brown & Williams VP of research Jeffrey Wigand's efforts to testify in court and on 60 Minutes about the tobacco industry's intentional manipulation of nicotine levels in cigarettes in order to purposefully make smokers more addicted so they'll buy more cigarettes.

Where All The President's Men and The Insider are characterized by a serious dramatic cinematic approach to the heavy subject matter, The Big Short brilliantly infuses dark comedy as a means to break down the complexity of the mortgage crisis to help help average folks better understand what actually sparked the Great Recession.

Matthew Broderick breaks the 4th Wall in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

For example, the movie breaks the unwritten "rule" of acting by breaking The Fourth Wall at various points throughout the script.

For you non-actors who might not know, as an actor standing on a stage faces an audience, he or she is surrounded by three walls; one behind, one to the left and one to the right.

The fourth wall is an invisible barrier between the front of the stage and the audience.


Remember Matthew Broderick's character Ferris Bueller speaking directly to the audience in the 1986 comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off? That's breaking the Fourth Wall.

Actors are taught not to break the fourth wall, meaning you stay within the script and direct your attention and focus on the actors in the scene, or the set - as a stage actor, you do have to project out towards the audience; but you don't acknowledge them.

As a film or television actor, you never (or rarely) look directly at the camera - if it's not very specifically called for, like breaking the Fourth Wall, even a slight glance at the camera lens during a scene is considered a serious rookie mistake on set and it will ruin a take that must then be re-shot.

Some films (or plays), particularly comedy, sometimes break that rule and have actors directly address the audience; The Big Short uses that effectively.

Actress Margot Robbie in The Big Short

At one point actress Margot Robbie (pictured left) appears in a bubble bath as a butler serves her champagne while she explains how sketchy subprime lending practices created massive profits based on non-existent money by intentionally offering mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back.

The scene is a pretty funny poke at the greed and excess of the uber rich that finds an innovative and sexy way to explain predatory lending.

In another scene celebrity chef and 'Kitchen Confidential' author Anthony Bourdain cuts up old fish to throw in a fish stew to explain how banks and Wall Street firms took really risky sub-prime mortgages out of bad Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's) and mixed them in together with higher rated prime mortgages in other CDO's to hide them and sell them off to greedy investors who had no idea what they were buying.

CDO's are basically a bunch of assets pooled together to make a financial product which can be sold, in the case of the financial crisis, most of these CDO's were filled with people's mortgages. When the housing bubble collapsed and home prices fell and people began to default on their mortgages, the value of these CDO's plummeted.

The Big Short effectively explains how this massive financial crime happened and how some people made a lot of money by "shorting" the housing market - betting money that the housing market would collapse.

It's the kind of film that's as educational as it is entertaining and people need to see it.

Don't read too much into The Big Short being snubbed at the Golden Globe Awards last night.

The Globes are decided upon by the 83 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association which is largely made up of freelance journalists.

There are some really strong acting performances in this film and my sense is you'll see those recognized by the SAG Awards and the Oscars - which are voted upon respectively by the approximately 160,000 members of SAG-AFTRA; or in the case of the Oscars, the almost 7,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Big Short is a film for the people with a meaning that transcends entertainment and deserves awards recognition - and as the most important part of the awards season unfolds, I think it will.