Annie Hall

Annie Hall follows a hopeless romantic named Alvy Singer and his adventures of his memories with his girlfriend Annie Hall. This movie is not just comical through the characters dialogue to each other, but the dialogue to the audience. Throughout the entire movie there are multiple times when the actors break the fourth wall in order to address the audience. At one point in the movie Alvy and Annie are in line to see the 1972 French documentary The Sorrow and the Pitty. While they're in line there is a professor who claims he knows everything there is to know about a theorist named Marshall McLuhan. Alvy starts to get very agitated by phrases the man behind him is saying so he addresses the audience in a more formal way speaking directly to us. He's telling us that what the professor behind him is saying are false interpretations of what McLuhan is really trying to say. 

Woody Allen using this technique to break the fourth wall is both comical and inviting. It make the audience feel like Alvy is really talking to us complaining about his life and asking us for our opinions. It breaks away from traditional film making because breaking the fourth wall isn't typically used by directors. Another example of when Alvy breaks the fourth wall is in the very beginning of the movie when he talks directly to the audience giving almost an introduction to what the movie is going to be about. He tries to give two jokes that don't really seem to be that funny, but the fact that he's addressing the audience and talking directly to the viewers creates a funny connection with Alvy. Do you think that the breaking of the fourth wall was used more to create comedy or a connection with Alvy? or both?