In the theatre the pretence of the fourth wall may be broken by metatheatrical devices. The film medium, however, which prides itself on its realism, rarely discloses its own enunciation and tends to deliberately ignore the spectators, permitting them to indulge in their voyeuristic fantasy. Mulvey calls it “a hermetically sealed world which unwinds magically, indifferent to the presence of the audience”.1 The Hollywood aesthetics, as exemplified in the names of the studios, such as DreamWorks, is based on the presumption that the experience of watching a movie is similar to the state of dreaming. Does it mean, however, that the audience should always be kept at a safe distance and the illusion of the film world protected? Can they be awakened from “the dream” earlier on than in the final credits? Is metatheatre transferable to the new medium?
