erik lundegaard

Saturday April 28, 2012

Here's Looking at You, Kid: Clara Darko Compiles Movie Stars Looking at Us

I love this cinema montage, put together by Clara Darko (who has put together a ton of cinema montages), of actors breaking the fourth wall and looking right at us.

OK, not always at us. More often, we're momentarily the POV of a character in the film, and the actor is interacting with that character: Saying hey to Harry Potter, hugging Benjamin Button, etc. How good an actor do you have to be to do this? To greet the camera like it's your baby? Impressive.

So who's looking at us? Definitely Superman, and Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places,” and Amelie about to talk creme brulee. Both Kyra Sedgewick in “Singles” and Ray Liotta in “Goodfellas” are telling us stories. So, obviously, is Woody Allen in “Annie Hall.” So is Anthony Perkins at the end of “Psycho,” one of the great fourth-wall breakers of all time.

Darko's whole video makes me happy. I'm happy to see “Un Prophete” in here, and “Come and See,” and “400 Blows.” The song is Manic Street Preacher's version of Frankie Valli's “Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.” I love how it first hits on the rousing chorus, “I love you, baby!,” the moment we see Audrey Tautou in “Amelie”: surely a cinematic moment in which the world sang that to an actress.

The montage is a bit of a lie, of course. It's not the world's movie stars who can't take their eyes off us but the other way around.

Posted at 09:02 AM on Saturday April 28, 2012 in category Movies  
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