Leah Mulcahy
Highly Recommended
The Louise Clancy Memorial Prize
Breaking the fourth wall is a theatrical technique in which a fictional work acknowledges its spectating audience and therefore its own fictionality. Schlütz et al. define the fourth wall and the breaking of it as follows:
the fictional scene is separated from reality by an imaginary wall demarcating two distinct worlds [...] When the viewer’s presence (and thereby the character’s own fictionality) is acknowledged, however, the wall is torn down and attention is drawn to the film as an artistic artefact (1-2).
The film I, Tonya breaks the fourth wall in a variety of different ways in order to evoke emotional responses from an audience of individual spectators. Schlütz et al.’s “fictional space” is referred to as the diegesis, including “settings, characters, sounds, and events” that exist “within the implied world of the story” (Pramaggiore and Wallis 67). Extradiegetic elements such as the spectating audience and real world are usually not acknowledged within diegetic narratives as this compromises the spectator’s suspension of disbelief: the impression that what we are seeing is real or at least an accurate representation of reality (Balme 35).
Film that does not break the fourth wall privileges “narrative enjoyment over awareness of the artefact” (the film itself) because narrative enjoyment typically “derives from the fact that the spectator is too immersed in watching the film to acknowledge it as artefact” (Schlütz et al. 4). Film can break the fourth wall using methods such as direct address and intertextuality. Use of a frame narrative, or a story within a story, may also facilitate metafictional narratives. This may include a narrator who exists solely for the benefit of the extradiegetic audience. This chapter, taken from a larger work, explores whether drawing attention to a text’s metafictional status can contribute to narrative enjoyment and emotional persuasion in I, Tonya.
Craig Hight writes that the television mockumentary will:
rely on an audience’s familiarity with the array of factual-based television forms, develop a commentary on these forms and the factual discourse they rely on, make intertextual reference to wider popular culture, and encourage identification with characters in the manner of more conventional fictional programming (105-106).
Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya profiles the turbulent personal life of figure skater Tonya Harding, leading up to and surpassing the 1994 Olympic scandal for which she is infamously known. Although a film, the work establishes itself as a mockumentary biopic, citing “irony free, wildly contradictory, totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly” as its source of inspiration via intertitle (I, Tonya 0:40-0:46). The fictional narrative correlates with Hight’s claim, oscillating between present-day testimonies via a supposed factual documentary mode and a cinematic mode that re-enacts key events from Harding’s past. Together these modes criticise both the documentary and biopic form. The film urges the spectator to question the persuasive power of the film medium, “satirise a pressing social issue” and “poke fun at documentary filmmaking itself” (Pramaggiore and Wallis 288). I, Tonya utilises direct address and references to reality, while voiceover accompanies and contradicts onscreen scenes. Direct address involves character(s) looking and speaking directly to the camera and may cause the character(s) to exhibit an awareness of their own fictionality if the audience they address exists outside of the diegesis. I, Tonya addresses real world issues such as domestic violence and abuse, although sensationalism of graphic footage and dark comedy undermines this representation. Identification with Harding’s character is reliant on both the documentary and cinematic film mode, surpassing fictional conventions.
I, Tonya juxtaposes documentary scenes with cinematic ones. The screen changes to a 1:1 aspect ratio when in documentary mode. The camera records interviewees statically in medium wide. Their names and relevance to Tonya are displayed in lower third text, mimicking television broadcasting and talking heads documentaries that “rely exclusively on interviews” (Pramaggiore and Wallis 283). Accompanying footage in this mode is faithful to documentary expectations: for example there is footage from Tonya’s childhood that is in poor quality as if recovered from a much older camera (1:09-1:12). Authentic presentation of the documentary mode shows how easily fiction can imitate reality—or in this case how a fictitious narrative can present itself as “totally true” through visual presentation alone. Tonya telling the camera that she’s “a real person” reinforces the ease in which the spectator can be deceived as only this line draws attention to the fact that she and the cast are not real, but actors impersonating the real interviewees (2:45-2:53). The spectator’s impression of Tonya is influenced by other characters’ opinions of her. This mirrors how perceptions of the real Harding are often predetermined by the extradiegetic media’s defamatory portrayal of her. Gillespie’s Tonya smokes, swears, and expresses pride in “growing up poor [and] being a redneck. Which is what I am” (2:57-3:04). Paulina Korzeniewska-Nowakowska remarks that the spectator’s ability to “sympathise with Tonya’s struggle” may conflict with a desire to “distance themselves from her crudeness”, yet depicting a crude Tonya conforms with the public’s expectations (69). Gillespie draws in those expecting a caricature of the real Harding to subvert said expectations and, ironically, question the media’s portrayal of real people.
I, Tonya urges sympathy through cinematic scenes that heavily contrast the documentary/interview mode. The aspect ratio returns to that of the film screen, while the camera regains unlimited mobility. I, Tonya immerses the spectator in cinematic scenes before drawing attention to the film’s metafictional status. Metafictional post-production and special effects can “call attention to themselves as intermedial intrusions” and cause them to become “object[s] of fascination by [themselves] rather than merely a means of communicating narrative content” (Jeffries 66). Tonya’s first day on the ice is interrupted by the disembodied voiceover of adult Tonya at the scene’s end: “six months later I win my first competition. I was four, okay? I mean, those bitches didn’t know what hit ‘em” (5:44-5:52). The adult Tonya interjects in order to emphasise the innocence of her younger self, urging the spectator to reconcile their opinion of the two.
Interactions between the two narrative modes undermines the documentary mode as it reveals its fictionality and role in serving cinematic stylisation. The documentary mode does not exist solely to provide biological context and frame the narrative. It tonally contrasts the cinematic mode and therefore aids in influencing the spectator’s emotional response. The modes appear to compete with one another, but this competition allows them to work in tandem. Visually graphic severity in the cinematic mode contradicts audible testimony from interview in order to provoke a charged response from the spectator:
Interview LaVona: To hear her tell it, I would operate on her daily without anaesthesia. Please. One fuckin’ time. I hit her one time with a hairbrush.
In-scene LaVona: [beating Tonya repeatedly with a hairbrush] You’re a terrible scum-suckin’ loser! (7:15-7:26).
The emotive response stems from present day LaVona’s supposed lack of accountability, a lack only alluded to from her silence as the cinematic scene takes place. I, Tonya draws attention to how framing an event can manipulate the spectator’s response to it.
As in the above examples, the film utilises visual violence and dark comedy. Wesley Lim notes the film’s “perpetual tension between building empathy and then abruptly disavowing the connection” (77). Empathy is built through visually graphic scenes, and then destabilised through dark humour. Tonya discloses her victimhood to withhold the spectator’s attention. She and the film itself utilise the public’s fascination with violence in order to force a connection to Tonya’s character. Tonya and Jeff argue in the car, the view too close to be mistaken for a diegetic perspective. He hits her. Voiceover becomes a startling direct address as Tonya affirms: “he started hitting me a few months in” (17:26-17:38). In the next scene a tracking shot moves slowly down the hallway, Tonya and Jeff only partially obscured by the open door. The camera enters the room and pans towards the couple. Tonya speaks candidly, disengaged from the diegesis, while Jeff remains unaware of her detachment and the camera’s presence. She states: “My mom hits me. She loves me” (17:39-17:45). Her “upside-down position” paired with this wildly inaccurate assumption is both “comical and childlike” and comically tragic (Lim 83). The connection between spectator and diegesis is not disavowed here but pressed “eerily close” as Tonya holds the spectator accountable for their intrusion into her private life, making them “active, culpable figures” (Lim 85).
In other instances where Tonya imposes intimacy on the spectator the camera itself is resistant, mirroring the spectator’s desire for distance. The camera must diligently follow the cinematic narrative but is not loyal to Tonya’s particular testimony. When she recalls molestation by her stepbrother the camera corroborates, but when she follows up with having “Creepy Chris arrested earlier that day” she notably does not comment on the retaliatory beating she gives him onscreen (12:18-12:28). When Jeff says in-interview: “I never hit her [...] I’m actually a pretty meek guy. She hit me [....] fired a gun at me too” his narrative unfolds on-screen. The in-scene Tonya stops, turns directly to the camera, and says: “This is bullshit. I never did this,” then reloads the gun (18:45-18:50). These instances question Tonya and Jeff’s truthfulness but also the truthfulness of the camera. The spectator must question whether the narrative taking place is singular and objective or a plurality of perspectives.
Gillespie portrays Tonya “in a twofold role as victim and abuser”, with the word ‘fault’ echoing eight times throughout the script (Korzeniewska-Nowakowska 71). She self-advocates to the spectator but again the camera keeps the narrative in-check. After failing to complete the triple axel in the ’92 Olympics Tonya cites her skate blade replacement as reason for her failure rather than her copious drinking two months earlier that is shown on screen (43:36-44:00). I, Tonya wants its subjects to be shown as unreliable, but not necessarily untruthful. The combination of the two narrative modes supports the possibility that each character believes their own description of events. It also emphasises each character’s desire to be believed. Their means of persuasion draws attention to the film’s fictionality, making it both more and less effective as the spectator engages their emotive and cognitive brain.
The film acknowledges its own utilisation of narrative and cinematic techniques. The immediate aftermath of Tonya and Jeff’s divorce plays out in the cinematic mode with little interruption from the documentary mode or breaking the fourth wall. It uses choice cinematography, editing, and soundtrack. The film then undermines the dramatic effect this creates through a transition to LaVona in-interview, stating: “Well, my storyline is disappearing right now. What. The. Fuck” (50:00-50:05). The interruption highlights the fictionality of both scenes—divorce and interview—and the way in which the film utilises multiple narrative storylines to prompt particular emotional responses (dramatic, comedic, etc). The film also employs choice intertextuality to achieve this. Intertextuality is where the diegesis makes explicit or implicit reference to other fictional works. This can emphasise the fictionality of the diegesis but can also call attention to stereotypes or tropes employed by other fictional works and how the text chooses to interact with them. When training for the 1994 Olympics, Tonya’s character enters a montage in which she references the film Rocky through direct address, arguably best known for its own training montage (52:47-52:53). Diane also breaks the fourth wall for the first and only time, informing the spectator that: “She actually did this… And this” (52:55-53:10). Reality is acknowledged as a brief aside, highlighting how the film privileges creating an artistic artefact that utilises cinematic techniques over creating an accurate biopic of Harding’s life.
The scene in which Jeff and Shawn plan to send death threats to Nancy Kerrigan is followed by a cinematic introduction to Stant and Smith (1:00:52-1:01:32). The intertitle “Shawn’s Guys” that introduces them is redundant in comparison to the previous intertitles that have conveyed factual, biographical information to the audience, such as dates and locations. The film continues to appropriate the once-serious documentary mode to facilitate the cinematic narrative. The visual scene in which “Some people, honest to God, remember Tonya whacking Nancy herself” is purely speculative, as it is proven in reality that Harding did not carry out the physical attack (58:28-58:33). The cinematic Tonya turns to face the spectator with a bloody grin, violence and sensationalism taking precedence over fact. Jeff breaks the fourth wall mid-interrogation: “Tonya didn’t know about the assault because there was never supposed to be an assault. Just letters” (1:03:24-1:03:33). The camera swivels around him as he maintains eye contact. While a faithful biopic should pay attention to fact and objectivity, above scenes show that in I, Tonya, the cinematic mockumentary employs as much metafictional referencing as it can the closer the film comes to portraying the actual real-life case. In this way the film conveys the impossibility of showing an actual true-to-life biopic.
Tonya herself completely dissolves the boundary between the diegesis and extradiegetic world through acknowledging her audience as extradiegetic, not one within the diegesis that the spectator happens to access:
I thought being famous was gonna be fun. I was loved. For a minute. Then I was hated. Then I was just a punchline, it was like I was being abused all over again. Except this time, it was by you. All of you. You’re all my attackers, too. (1:32:04-1:32:46).
Acknowledgement of the spectator and the abuse they have allegedly committed solidifies the film’s existence as an artistic artefact that dramatizes the Harding case rather than objectively reenacting it. Her address allows the spectator to “question and satirise the public version of her story shaped by the media [...] the many myths that have arisen over the years” (Korzeniewska-Nowakowska 70). Only through presenting itself as a documentary can I, Tonya deconstruct this public version and deconstruct the biopic form, revealing the ways in which said forms will never be objective but polluted by their own subjectivity. Ironically, in this way the film creates a more truthful portrayal of Harding than “objective” media ever has, as it is transparent with its inability to portray truth and transparent with its own manipulation of facts to prioritise entertainment:
There’s no such thing as truth. I mean, it’s bullshit. Everyone has their own truth. And life just does whatever the fuck it wants. That’s the story of my life. And that’s the fucking truth. (1:50:49-1:51:42).
The real Harding’s skating routine and the real interviews that inspired the film play alongside the end credits, juxtaposing creator with subject and fiction with reality (1:52:32-1:55:01). Although subjects are dramatically and therefore subjectively portrayed, the film respects and acknowledges the real subjects that lie behind the artistic artefact, demonstrating, even at the end of the film’s runtime, that reality can never be recreated, only imitated. In drawing awareness to a film’s existence as an artistic artefact, the spectator’s enjoyment of the text and engagement with it derives from an emotional and critical response simultaneously.
Works Cited
Balme, Christopher B. “Spectators and Audiences.” The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 34-46.
Frank, Hannah and Tom Gunning. “A View of the World: Towards a Photographic Theory of Cel Animation.” Frame by Frame: A Materialist Aesthetics of Animated Cartoons, edited by Daniel Morgan, 1st. ed., University of California Press, 2019, pp. 44-73.
Gillespie, Craig, director. I, Tonya. Neon; 30 West, 2017.
Hight, Craig. “Experiments in Parody and Satire: Short-Form Mockumentary Series.” Too Bold for the Box Office: The Mockumentary from Big Screen to Small, edited by Cynthia J. Miller, Scarecrow Press Inc., 2012, pp. 105-122.
Jeffries, Dru. “Vandalising the Fourth Wall: Word-Image Hybridity and a Comic Book Cinema of Attractions.” Comic Book Cinema Style, Texas University Press, 2017.
Korzeniewska-Nowakowska, Paulina. “American Poverty and Social Rejection in Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya.” The European Journal of Life Writing, vol. x, 2021, pp. 64-76.
Lim, Wesley. “A Mode of Agitation between Verfremdungseffekt and Empathy: Breaking the Fourth Wall in Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya.” Canadian Journal of Film Studies, vol. 30, no. 20, University of Toronto Press, 2021, pp. 75-92.
Pramaggiore, Maria and Tom Wallace. Film: A Critical Introduction, 3rd ed., Laurence King Publishing, 2011.
Schlütz, Daniela, et. al. “‘Is He Talking to Me?’ How Breaking the Fourth Wall Influences Enjoyment.” Projections, vol. 14, no. 2, New York, 2020, pp. 1-25.