The Magazine Scene in My Own Private Idaho

I was pretty confused (and I believe rightly so) when the magazine scene came about in My Own Private Idaho. I just assumed that the film was cutting to a new scene - which it is, obviously - but when Keanu Reeves broke the fourth wall, I was surprised, in an awesome way. I think the scene was incredibly fresh in its approach. It gave the film a whole new layer and fully captured my attention, as I wanted to see where the film was going with it. It proved to be a fantastic way to introduce Keanu's character and his feelings on what he does. Then, not only did Keanu break the fourth wall, he pulls Mike into the scene, on his own cover of a magazine, along with others on their own. I thought it was a fantastic way to explain some of the concepts of the film in a non-traditional way. Instead of simply adding in a scene full of dialogue between the two characters and others that happened to be around, Van Sant created - well, I am not sure he completely created it - but he found a fresh way of propelling the story forward, that I am sure caught most viewers' attention the same way it caught mine.

Plenty of films have made use of breaking the fourth wall to interact with their viewers, but My Own Private Idaho did it in a way that was new and fresh for the time, when it was released. It was extremely useful in providing some background on Keanu Reeves' character and showing how he differed from the other characters in the film, particularly Mike, the character that he goes on the road with.