Editing technique · used in 8 films
Stopping the picture on a single still frame for a moment. It works like punctuation to introduce a character, underline a joke or mark a turning point.
Examples
Federico Fellini · 1953
Fellini stops the picture on young Guido on a railroad track. The still frame closes the film like a period at the end of a sentence.
Where to see it: The final shot: Moraldo leaves on a train, and the picture freezes on the boy Guido on the tracks.
François Truffaut · 1959
The film ends by freezing on Antoine's face at the ocean, the most famous freeze frame in cinema. The boy has escaped the reform school and reached the sea he always wanted to see. The freeze stops him before he can arrive anywhere or resolve anything. It leaves him hanging, and the film refuses to show his future.
Where to see it: The final shot. Antoine turns to the camera at the waterline and the image freezes on his face. He looks neither triumphant nor defeated. The film ends without letting him move.
François Truffaut · 1962
Truffaut freezes the frame on Catherine's face as she pulls faces at Jules and Jim in the country. The still image holds her expression for a moment. She is fixed as an image the men can look at but never keep.
Where to see it: Catherine's face, frozen as she makes faces at Jules and Jim in the country. The freeze makes her something to look at before the men can understand her.
Sidney Lumet · 1964
The last images show New Yorkers going about their day, as a run of frozen pictures before the detonation. The stillness turns ordinary people into the film's final argument.
Where to see it: The final minutes: Glimpses of New Yorkers in everyday life appear just before the atomic bomb detonates and incinerates the city.
Martin Scorsese · 1990
Thelma Schoonmaker uses freeze frames to introduce characters and to mark key moments in Henry's narration. The film stops on a face while a voice explains who the person is. The technique admits that this is a remembered story, a series of images that memory has already edited.
Where to see it: Henry's introduction of Jimmy Conway. The freeze frame works as Henry's memory picking out what matters.
Ridley Scott · 1991
The film ends by stopping the picture on the car in the air above the canyon, then fading out. You never see it land. The frozen image holds the women at the high point of their escape and leaves what happens next to you.
Where to see it: The final shot: the Thunderbird leaves the cliff and the image freezes in mid-air.
Guy Ritchie · 2000
Ritchie freezes the image and puts a name on screen when each character is introduced: 'Turkish', 'Bullet Tooth Tony', 'Boris the Blade'. Ritchie had already used the technique in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and it also draws on crime film traditions. It gives the film the feel of an ensemble comedy and treats the underworld as a cast of characters in a shared farce.
Where to see it: The character introduction freeze frames. Each criminal's name appears as the film lists its cast with affectionate precision.
Park Chan-wook · 2000
The last image is a photograph taken by a tourist that shows all four soldiers together. You know what happens to them, so the happy faces hurt. It gives the whole film a quiet, painful rewind.
Where to see it: The closing photograph. The four soldiers stand side by side in a picture taken before the shooting.
Questions