Martin Scorseseis undoubtedly a master of cinematic style, often drawing attention to his filmmaking prowess but never doing so without good reason. From his much celebrated and imitated long takes to his (or ratherThelma Schoonmaker’s) dazzling editing, Scorsese always knows how to impress cinephiles across the globe while simultaneously telling incredible stories.
Perhaps one of Scorsese’s least analyzed techniques is when his narrators break the fourth wall by speaking directly to the camera or audience. The most prominent examples of this occur inGoodfellas,The Wolf of Wall Street, andThe Irishman, films that, not coincidentally, feature unreliable, obnoxious narrators who are ostensibly admitting to criminal misconduct while also excusing their misbehavior and celebrating their immorality.
By taking a close look at three scenes in particular, the courtroom scene near the end ofGoodfellas, the “Was all this legal?” scene inThe Wolf of Wall Street, and the barbershop hit scene inThe Irishman, we’ll see how Scorsese breaks the fourth wall in order to confront, challenge, and even bully his audience into recognizing how awful and brazen his protagonists really are.
In Goodfellas, Henry Hill’s Diatribe Isn’t a Confession, but a Complaint
Near the end of Scorsese’s 1990 masterpieceGoodfellas, protagonist Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) gets up from the witness stand in a courtroom and begins speaking directly to the camera. He rattles off a list of the many ways in which he and his mobster cohorts screwed over honest taxpayers. “When I was broke, I would 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.”
This little diatribe to the audience isn’t a confession, it’s a complaint. Hill can’t believe his quality of life has plummeted so dramatically. As a child, he gazed through his bedroom window at the well-dressed gangsters across the street and marveled that they could do whatever they wanted. After many years of risk and hard work, he became one of his childhood heroes. But now, he’s forced to give it all up. In the next scene, after entering witness protection, he even complains about the quality of the pasta in his new town.
RELATED:‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: Plot, Cast, and Everything We Know So Far
This is not a man who feels sorry about what he did. He only feels sorry for himself. In the typical fashion of sociopaths and narcissists, Hill makes sure we are aware of how many people were complicit in these crimes. He cannot simply take responsibility for himself, he must justify his misdeeds by constantly pointing out that other people also participated in the mobster lifestyle.
Scorsese wants his audience to literally come face-to-face with Hill and confront this cold reality. In his own telling, Hill was a relatively harmless mobster trying his best to stay afloat in a sea of corruption. In front of Scorsese’s camera, however, his sins are made plain. Scorsese breaks the fourth wall in this scene in order to ensure his audience understands that Hill is not asking for forgiveness and certainly does not deserve it.
The Wolf of Wall Street Puts Belfort’s Profound Immorality on Display
If any Scorsese character can challenge Henry Hill for sheer brazenness, it’s Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), who orchestrated an elaborate scheme to swindle working-class people out of their hard-earned money. When the SEC sent lawyers to investigate Belfort’s firm, he brags about bugging them and literally trying to freeze them out by cranking up the air conditioning. He then waltzes towards the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and begins to explain what an IPO is before he stops himself and says, “Look, I know you’re not following what I’m saying anyway, right? That’s OK. That doesn’t matter. The real question is this: was all this legal? Absolutely fucking not, but we were making more money than we knew what to do with.”
LikeGoodfellas, this is an instance in which Scorsese interrupts the narrative to make it clear that Belfort knew that what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway. Scorsese’s decision to force his characters to confront the audience by breaking the fourth wall helps to dispel the common complaint thatThe Wolf of Wall Streetglorifies greed and hedonism. As with the courtroom scene inGoodfellas, we are presented with the plain fact that the film’s narrator is profoundly immoral and there’s no ambiguity about it. When breaking the fourth wall, Scorsese expects his audience to shake its collective head in disgust and maybe even tighten their fist in an urge to punch the film’s protagonist.
In The Irishman, Scorsese Exposes Bufalino for Who He Really Is
Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci) is a much quieter man than Henry Hill or Jordan Belfort. ThroughoutThe Irishman, he almost never raises his voice and only seems mildly irritated when people betray or disappoint him. But thanks to Pesci’s remarkable performance, we sense there is a boiling rage underneath his character’s cool exterior. Often presented as a father figure or mentor, Bufalino seems to enjoy taking upstart gangsters under his wing, teaching them the rules of the criminal life and establishing a code of conduct. When planning out the details of a murder, Buffalino, seated calmly in an office, states directly to the camera, “When I ask somebody to take care of something for me, I expect them to take care of it themselves. I don’t need two roads coming back to me.”
What may at first sound like some helpful fatherly advice is, of course, a directive that Bufalino wants his henchmen to go out and murder when he tells them to. Lest they protect themselves by having someone else do the dirty work (which is exactly what Bufalino is doing), he ensures this doesn’t happen so as to eliminate one more potential troublemaker who could get him in hot water. In other words, he’s a remarkably evil and selfish man portraying himself as a wisened veteran of his business. By breaking the fourth wall here, Scorsese exposes the seemingly kindly old man for who he really is. Once again, Scorsese interrupts the narrative and breaks the fourth wall to emphasize to his audience how a character’s confident demeanor masks almost unfathomable evil.
