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Q238: Tintin the joker

tintinspartan
Member
#1 · Posted: 31 May 2007 06:41
Now, i'm back in the hot seat to set the next one. Which scene and book did Tintin trick The Thompsons for fun? Hint: Tintin winking.
Mark Falconer
Member
#2 · Posted: 31 May 2007 07:20
You skipped a number there - this should be 238.
Anyway, the scene in reference is on the final page of King Ottokar's Sceptre - the Thom(p)sons think that they are 'falling into the sea!'
He isn't exactly 'tricking' our bowlered friends, just not stopping them from doing the next hilarious thing.
labrador road 26
Member
#3 · Posted: 31 May 2007 11:26
The second frame of page 62 in King Ottokar's Sceptre is also perhaps the only time Tintin breaches the comic and sort of aknowledge the reader by winking at us. That was going to be my next question when I solved the quiz next time.

There is a term for it, at least in films, when someone looks directly at the viewer/reader, but I can't remember what the term is. Last film I saw that used it was Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back, and Kevin Smith talks about it in the behind-the-scenes films on the dvd.

I haven't seen as far as I remember any other scenes in Tintin when this sort of breaching occurs. Someone here could perhaps enlighten me (and everyone else) as to what the term is.

EDIT: could someone please assign the correct number to this question.

[Moderator note: Sorted!]
waveofplague
Member
#4 · Posted: 31 May 2007 12:24
There is a term for it, at least in films, when someone looks directly at the viewer/reader, but I can't remember what the term is. Last film I saw that used it was Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back, and Kevin Smith talks about it in the behind-the-scenes films on the dvd.


Right, it's something about breaking through the "fourth wall," I think
tuhatkauno
Member
#5 · Posted: 31 May 2007 12:28
There is a term for it, at least in films, when someone looks directly at the viewer/reader, but I can't remember what the term is.

If i remember correctly, my friend, a film nut journalist, liked to use fancy words, and one of his fancy words was .... eeerr ..... meta ... something. It is perhaps metafilm or metamovie in English.

It is always a pleasure to help others, it is metafilm or metasomething. :)

EDIT: But Tintin is not a film! Oh guano! Metatext is text which guides the reader, but what sort of meta could Labradors dilemma be? He is meta Tintin when he speaks directly to the reader. To be honest I don't know.
Balthazar
Moderator
#6 · Posted: 31 May 2007 13:03
Tintin also sort of breaks the fourth wall to look knowingly at the reader on the cover of The Castafiore Emerald, of course. But you may well be right, labrador road, that the instance at the end of King Ottokar's Sceptre is the only time Tintin does it within the books. I can't think of another one, anyway. If there is another one, though, someone on this forum will spot it!

Snowy sort of seems to be breaking the fourth wall on the last page of Flight 714, as he seems to by looking at the reader directly when he thinks: "I could tell them a thing or two!...But no one would believe me!" In earlier books, this comment of Snowy's would have been in a speech-balloon, but in this book Hergé starts using thought-balloons for Snowy's thoughts (and other people's) for the first time, I think. But even though it's in a thought-balloon, Snowy's comment here seems directed at the reader, because of his outward gaze.

I don't know what the "meta-something" film term you're trying to remember is, tuhatkauno, but in the theatre, breaking out of the action to deliver a line to the audience that the other characters don't hear is called delivering an aside. Asides are perhaps used most frequently in Restoration Comedy (plays of the late 17th century), usually to enable a character to reveal his true thoughts or intentions to the audience, ones which he's keeping from the other characters.
tuhatkauno
Member
#7 · Posted: 31 May 2007 13:34
I don't know what the "meta-something" film term you're trying to remember is

I called the nut journalist and asked. The metafilm is not the consept we are after, it is a part of the film, in which the film comments itself or something like that. He didn't remember the term we are looking for.
mondrian
Member
#8 · Posted: 31 May 2007 13:56
Prefix "meta" means roughly something about itself. Metafilm is exactly what tuhatkauno explained, metatheory would be a theory about theories, metatext is text about something earlier written and so on.

And no, I have absolutely no idea what´s the term you´re looking for. But similar tools have been used in different artforms for centuries, thousands of paintings include some form of hint that "speaks" directly to the onlooker.
tintinspartan
Member
#9 · Posted: 31 May 2007 15:35
Tintin did that in the last frame of Secret of The Unicorn. Well, time to give the points.

Mark Falconer scores for this one and sets the next question. labrador road gets a bonus point for giving a more precise answer. Well, Mark, the keys to the next question are yours!

This topic is closed.