The Importance Of Self-Awareness In Film

What does it mean for something to be self-reflexive? In film terms, it means that the film has a varying level of self-awareness. This film will often attempt to make the audience aware of the film creation process, taking the viewer sometime by surprise as they are yanked directly from the world the movie had started to construct. There are several movies across the expanse of genre that attempt to pull of this sense of self-reference that range anywhere from Kelly and Donen’s Singing in the Rain (1952) to Jones and Gilliam’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). However, as time marches on and the “superhero” genre gains more and more popularity from the film-viewing public, a new face has taken the reigns of self-reflexive films and has completely run away from them. In 2016, Tim Miller’s movie

In this shot, Deadpool’s entire focus is on the camera and away from the reality constructed around him. From this shot, Deadpool starts directly addressing the audience, talking to the audience members as if they were old friends stopping by for a visit. This action does more than just startle the audience into attention as the main character directly addresses them, it only confirms earlier statements made on how this film intends to shatter the typical reality movies and superhero movies try to blur and melt; by talking with the audience directly, Deadpool not only breaks the myth that the audience does not exist in the narrative, he brings the members of the audience directly into his