figure, but also at the opening of some of his films, where it has the capacity to
bind itself to other forms of suddenness.
Without supplying a comprehensive list of freeze-frames in Fassbinder’s
films, I have selected a few moments of visual standstill from his extensive
work to show the variation and complexity of this figure to develop a theory of
interruption in film. I would like to begin with one of the most famous films,
Die Ehe der Maria Braun(The Marriage of Maria Braun)(). This
film, as we know, is literarily framed by photographs: a portrait of Hitler at the
start and a series of large portraits of West German chancellors at the end intro-
duce the notion of a temporary expansion of the narrative, placed in the post-
war years. This series of“negative”monuments–Willy Brandt is missing–is
often analyzed in terms of semantic content. For me, however, it seems just as
essential that this insertion of the photographic in the movement image on a
formal level forms a symptomatic correspondence to another form of standstill
at the start of the film. Even before the credits, the opening of the film brings us
the scene of a newly married couple and a registry official leaving a German
registry office during an air raid. We watch as the excited couple throw them-
selves to the ground, imploring the official to sign the marriage certificate right
there. A sheet of paper floats upward, borne on the gust of wind caused by
exploding bombs, and then, in the middle of the visual field, there is a sudden
standstill in the form of a freeze-frame, while the soundtrack continues to her-
ald the horror of the approaching artillery. This is followed by the film title in
red letters that fill the entire visual field, word after word, as if it were a page in
a book. At the end, Fassbinder’s name appears alone on a white backdrop.
With this standstill, the floating sheet of paper is simultaneously captured
and displaced by the film. Due to the non-sync between image and sound, of
visual interruption and auditive flow, we are confronted from the very start
with two various temporal modi: the time of the film narrative (the postwar
years) and the time of the making of the film (thes). At issue here is Fas-
sbinder’s time-place: when the author tells stories and histories, they are always
primarily in the present tense.
InIch will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt(I Only Want You to Love Me)
(), there are numerous suspensions of movement toward the end of the
film. As a whole, the narration is structured around flashbacks that are all moti-
vated by conversations in a prison. The conversation in the beginning of the film
is accorded therapeutic value for the (anti)hero Peter (Vitus Zeplichal), as well
as symbolic capital for the psychologist, who intends to write a book about the
story. Slowly, in the form of flashbacks, a story develops around a young man’s
psychic repressions, his“blockage”, Oedipal confusions and a system of alien-
ated exchange relations.At the end of the film, a series of three visual stand-
stills introduces the passing of the final titles in white letters. These visual stand-
78 Christa Blümlinger