The Suspension of Cinematic Momentum.

Abstract

This essay analyzes the freezeframe as a sequential element that creates meaning and sense in a film, a prism that projects an expanded and deconstructed reflection from which we can approach the foundational models that gave birth to the contemporary cinematic discourse as we know it. We undertake such an analysis by understanding the freeze-frame as a grammatical resource that has typically held a marginal and secondary place in the study of cinema history, rescuing it in the form of suspension of cinematic momentum. This tag of recognition that we place on the freeze-frame forces us to think about it not only as a trick but also as a link between fixed photography and moving image, a nuclear connection that allows us, and at the same time, challenges us to consider the cinematic image from its most basic unit of significance.