GOODFELLAS


Nicholas Pileggi (book)
Nicholas Pileggi (screenplay) &
Martin Scorsese (screenplay)


Henry Hill: [narrating] Anything I wanted was a phone call away. Free cars. The keys to a dozen hideout flats all over the city. I bet twenty, thirty grand over a weekend and then I'd either blow the winnings in a week or go to the sharks to pay back the bookies.
[Henry leaves the witness stand and speaks directly to the camera]
Henry Hill: Didn't matter. It didn't mean anything. When I was broke, I'd go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over.
Henry Hill: [narrating] And that's the hardest part. Today everything is different; there's no action... have to wait around like everyone else. Can't even get decent food - right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup. I'm an average nobody... get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1UMCfbqDsU&feature=related

breaking of fourth wall @3:54

My favorite is still FIGHT CLUB, which I mentioned earlier, but I feel compelled to go back the the granddaddy of these, Annie Hall featuring Marshal McLuhan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wWUc8BZgWE

There's some good 4th wall breakage in TAMPOPO.

High Fidelity

Annie Hall

"Well, that's funny cause I happen to have Mr McLuhan right here... Boy, if life were only like this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpIYz8tfGjY

Just want to riff on FIGHT CLUB for a second.

It breaks the fourth wall in a unique manner, not by addressing the camera directly, but by pointing out that they are characters within a movie.

TYLER: Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?

NARRATOR mumbles.

TYLER: I'm sorry...
NARRATOR: I still can't think of anything.
TYLER: Ah, flashback humor.

I'm single again! Oh behave!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhMRXjGn0V0

There's a really chilling example of this in haneke's funny games. The remake with Tim Roth is great too.

Boston Legal! All the time. at the end of some episodes when Denny Crane and Allan Shore are having a nightcap on the balcony, they will even make reference to the episode the following week, same time next week etc. Very funny. Cannot find any clips yet

ALFIE, both the Michael Caine and Jude Law versions. In the latter it became downright irritating.

TOM JONES (1963) is the earliest I remember this technique being used. It was done with restraint and was very funny.