camera’s frontal presence is standard in mainstream narrative cinema
because it inherited the implied ‘fourth wall’ of realist theatre.^22 Things
appear to happen as if there was no audience, even though they are
performedforthe audience. In cinema and theatre the sweeping along
of the spectator in the unfolding of the drama before them is what
138 suspends the disbelief. (This is why the ‘breaking of the spell’ beloved
123 Jeff Wall,Mimic(1982).Transparency
in lightbox, 198 x 228.5 cm.