By Jacob deBlecourt
The opening scene of a movie says a lot about how the director wishes to characterize their film. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun is of course no exception. I chose to end the opening shot at the point in which the title appears on the screen and the credits roll in. Choosing to close end the opening scene at this point makes sense for several reasons. First, the events following the title sequence is further along in time than the opening sequence. Second, the film’s main plot points revolve around what happened in this portion of the film, namely the actual marriage of Maria Braun. The opening scene commences on a shot of Hitler and, as it explodes, the hole left by its presence reveals Maria and her groom, Hermann. They proceed with a hasty wedding ceremony as the bombs audibly and visually fall around them. The marriage itself is only made official after Maria and Hermann sign the papers, huddling on the ground outside of a bombed-out building, holding down the wedding officiator from running away in fear. The sounds of bombs and babies crying fills the air which transitions into an “All-Clear” call while the credits overlay. The opening scene, including the credits, ends roughly around the four-minute mark.
Mise-en-scene:
The mise-en-scene in this opening sequence achieves a great deal. First, the character’s costumes, a wedding dress for Maria and a soldier’s uniform for Hermann, reveal not only what time period they are in (World War II), but what they are actually doing—getting married. The set is a bombed-out building—windows shattered, bricks eschew—as well as the street in front of the building, which is in extreme disarray, with papers flung all across the street.
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the mise-en-scene in The Marriage of Maria Braun is the very first shot itself. This initial shot is of a portrait of Adolf Hitler. It is almost immediately blown to pieces. The opening shot establishes several key points that are present throughout the film. First, it helps to establish time period. As with the clothing and setting–as discussed in the first paragraph–including a portrait of Hitler, specifically one of him being demolished, puts the audience in the mindset of the Second World War. Second, the opening shot establishes the tone of the film. As a stand-alone image it holds negative connotations, as do most depictions of Hitler, but the meaning of the portrait becomes significantly more tied to the tone of the movie when compared and contrasted with the portraits of contemporary German chancellors at the end.
Sound:
Sound plays an important role in this film; it both symbolically progresses the film as it does literally. The sounds of the bombs falling clearly place the film in a wartime scenario, in the same way the mise-en-scene does. In addition to the sound of the bombs falling, there is a persistent cry of a baby. There are different theories on what this crying baby means. Stephen Brockmann, in A Critical History of German Cinema, believes that the crying baby is a metaphor for the rebirth of Germany post-WWII. There are others who simply believe that the noise is to simply add to the audible chaos of the scenario. While both are valid interpretations, the baby’s crying as a means to add chaos and confusion perhaps best fits when considering the ongoing cacophony. Once the bombs stop falling, there is an “All Clear” sign given, which can also indicate that the battle, if not the war, is over.
The opening scene in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun both encapsulates and foreshadows the rest of the film.
By introducing a common motif used throughout the movie in the opening scene, Fassbinder helps to encapsulate one of the key tenets of the film’s message as a whole.
As established in the portion on mise-en-scene, the opening sequence puts the characters in a World War II setting. Within the greater context of this war, the audience also views the private affairs of Maria Braun. This helps to encapsulate one of the key tenets of the film. Fassbinder presents the audience with two timelines: The first timeline is of Maria Braun’s life–her marriage, her ascent to power, and her downfall. The second timeline is of Germany’s history following the Second World War. These two timelines are not mutually exclusive, but rather quite the opposite. Maria’s timeline weaves in and out of the history of Germany following the Second World War. By means of example, portions of Chancellor Adenauer’s speeches play on the radio as Maria goes about her life. This idea is encapsulated in the opening scene: the idea that Maria goes about her life as history happens around her. The opening scene takes place during a bombing of Germany during the Second World War. While in terms of Germany’s history that day will be looked upon as a day of loss for the Germans, for Maria that was her wedding day. The events of Maria’s life work in tandem with the history of postwar Germany, meeting at certain significant points to locate Maria in the timeline.
The film also foreshadows a portion of the ending. First, the portrait of Adolf Hitler can be seen as a foreshadow to the portraits of the contemporary German Chancellors that appear at the end of the film. While this is not necessarily a foreshadowing of events, it is a foreshadowing of both style and meaning. As mentioned previously, one of the key tenets of the film is Maria’s weaving through historical events in postwar Germany. Events throughout the film, therefore, indicate the time period, such as Adenauer’s speeches or the German football match on the radio. The portraits do the same thing: By concluding with a portrait of the sitting chancellor upon the film’s completion, the film brings Maria’s timeline to modern day in the same way that the portrait of Adolf Hitler in the beginning begins Maria’s timeline. Second, it is important to note that the film opens with an explosion. This can be seen as foreshadowing to the end when, much like how Maria’s life with Hermann, her husband, begins with an explosion, her life with Hermann ends with an explosion.
The film was designed around these bookend-esque moments, with both the explosion and the portraits of the chancellors, in order to draw attention to their similarities. As is further discussed in the following portion of the essay, the similarities between the opening and closing speak to a greater nature about Fassbinder’s views on West Germany.
The opening scene is crucial in order to establish the key tenets of the director’s message. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun is no exception. In the opening scene, Fassbinder introduces the audience to the key tenets of his film: First, Fassbinder announces that he intends to historicize the titular character by placing her in the timeline of postwar West Germany. The second tenet is that Fassbinder intends to draw parallels between Maria’s life and the life of West Germany to suggest that, much like Maria herself, West Germany will eventually fail. Though these points have been discussed in earlier portions of this essay, these tenets are clearly supported in Stephen Brockmann’s chapter “Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979) or West Germany Rebuilds” of his book A Critical History of German Film.
First, the opening scene encapsulates the idea that Fassbinder is historicizing Maria Braun. The portion of Maria Braun’s life that the audience gets to see is heavily rooted in the history of post-war Germany. Brockmann points this out by saying that “the private story of Maria and her marriage to Hermann Braun is embedded from the very beginning in the larger story of postwar West Germany and its development” (Brockmann, 364). As previously mentioned in portion C of this essay, Maria’s life weaves in and out of the history of early West Germany. Other scenes in this movie call back the idea of historicizing Maria Braun. For example, Fassbinder’s use of radio broadcasts of Adenauer throughout the film places Maria in the context of West Germany—which Brockmann discusses by saying “none of these soundtrack elements is the sole focus of the movie…the movie’s plot proceeds in the foreground” (365). In the opening sequence, however, the timeline is created by means of the mise-en-scene. The costumes and the rubble buildings clearly place Maria in the time of the Second World War. On top of all of this is the portrait of Adolf Hitler, which is the very first shot of the film. While this portrait helps to historicize Maria, it has an ulterior motive which is only realized in the context of the last scene of the film.
The opening scene foreshadows the movie’s connection between Maria and Postwar Germany. As previously mentioned, the portrait of Hitler at the start of the film mirrors the portraits of the West German Chancellors at the end of the film. Brockmann notes this by saying “this progression from Hitler at the beginning to the chancellors at the end implies that West German history still forms a continuity with Hitler’s Third Reich” (364). Therefore, Fassbinder is not suggesting that his contemporary chancellors were similar to Hitler, but rather he suggests that it would be foolish to ignore the tether that ties Hitler and West German Chancellors together. Much like with the radio, the image of Hitler in the opening scene “connects Maria and her fate to the fate of Postwar Germany” (365). It is at this point that Brockmann’s analysis delves into the realm of fate. Fate has implications in the supernatural, a direction which the film does not take. Maria will inevitably have bad things happen to her (which some might call ill-fated), but these negative things in her life are caused by people.
These negative instances are foreshadowed in the opening sequence. While many associate weddings with joy and celebration, Maria Braun’s wedding was filled with hardship. Her wedding, taking place in a bombed-out rubble building to a man she hardly knew, is only officiated by a civil servant who had to be tackled to the ground to prevent his escape. Similarly, when she is reunited with her husband, a supposedly joyous occasion, she dies from a gas explosion. These instances demonstrate that Maria will inevitably have terrible things happen to her.
Brockmann calls The Marriage of Maria Braun Fassbinder’s “far-reaching critique of postwar West German development” (363).
Thus, because this movie both tracks the downfall of Maria Braun in the timeline of postwar West Germany and is meant to critique West German development, it is fair to say that Maria’s inevitable failure is meant to represent Fassbinder’s outlook on West Germany. The mise-en-scene and images in the opening scene do more than simply put Maria into the history; they tell the story of postwar Germany through the lens of Maria. As Maria gains new wealth from her job, West Germany enters its Economic Miracle. However, just as both Maria and West Germany succeed economically side-by-side, so must they meet failure. The parallel between this and the images of West German Chancellors suggests that Fassbinder sees West Germany an inevitable failure as well.
The opening scene of The Marriage of Maria Braun achieves two things: First, it manages to establish Fassbinder’s point of historicizing Maria Braun, placing her in the time period as a means to progress the story. Second, Fassbinder uses the parallels between the Maria Braun’s arch and the overall greater success of postwar West Germany’s economic miracle in order to suggest that postwar West Germany will fail just as Maria does. This is all pointed out in the opening sequence. It is made clear that Maria Braun has been historicized because she has been introduced by a shattering image of Adolf Hitler. The entire circumstance of her wedding also makes clear the nature of the character: On a day which is typically ceremonious and jovial, Maria chose to marry a man whom she barely knew in a bombed-out building with shattered glass by a civil servant. The opening scene brilliantly encapsulates the message that Fassbinder is trying to spread about his critique of West Germany. Stephen Brockmann’s chapter on The Marriage of Maria Braun brilliantly explicates these ideas. Fassbinder once said in an interview that he wanted to make The Marriage of Maria Braun in order to “challenge the status quo.” By creating a film that critiqued West Germany during its economic miracle—what many would believe would be its greatest time—Fassbinder certainly manages to challenge the status quo.