American Cinematographer - February 2007 - 69

Stationmaster's

Wife (1977), notable

for its long pans, complicated setups
and

expressive camera moves,

Ballhaus and Fassbinder mounted

Marriage of Maria Braun
(1978), which earned many awards
The

and became Fassbinder's

biggest

international hit. Starring Schygulla
in the title role, the movie follows a
World War II bride's journey of sur¬

Germany. The film
begins, quite literally, with a bang -
vival in postwar
a

moment

get.

Ballhaus will

never

ticular

scene

with

him,"

together,

says

planned to do about
eight shots to get the sequence, and
when I started preparing it and
lighting it, he went off to his trailer.
About half

an

hour later, he

patience was running

The conflict boiled

over

while

prepping Fassbinder's
next project, the 15-hour television
opus Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980).
"I had my deal in place, but before I
started working on Alexanderplatz, I
Ballhaus

came

taking a little sniff of
cocaine and said, 'No, we won't do it

back after

this way, we'll do it in one shot.' You
have to be very patient in those situ¬

shot

ations, but after

scout

so

my

out."

Ballhaus. "We

a

movie with another director.

When I

many years

was

came

back to Berlin to do

a

for Rainer, he decided to pun-

for¬

"The first shot of the movie

shows Maria and her husband

sign¬
ing their marriage certificate in a
rubble-strewn street. Rainer wanted

explosion to happen right after
they signed the certificate so the
piece of paper would get blown
away. This Italian special-effects guy
set up the charge with a little bit of
powder, but it just gave off a small
puff. Fassbinder complained, so the
the

guy added some more powder,
Rainer was still not happy with

but

the
pissed
in the
charge, and when it exploded, I flew
backwards along with the camera,

results. So then the guy got
and put too much powder

which

was

Ballhaus maintained

urated
scenes

COLOR CORRECTION

*

EDITING

*

DUPLICATION

*

TELECINE

ruined!"
a

desat-

palette for the wartime
and gradually added more

color and illumination

as

the

war

fade and Maria's prospects
brighten. He was aided in this strat¬
egy by his wife, who once again
served as production designer.

years

'Maria Braun

was

the first movie I

shot with

Fuji film stock," he notes.
"I used the high-speed stock. I used
very little light and shot wide open
sometimes. We did

some

*

Exceptional customer service and more.

scenes

basically with candlelight. Helga
was careful to keep the colors very
muted in the early scenes because
those were very poor times in
Germany."
Maria Braun marked the end

of Ballhaus'

collaboration with

818.777.1111

digital

Fassbinder, whose drinking and

drugging had begun to take a heavy
toll. "I remember discussing a par¬

.

800.892.1979

THE FILMMAKERS DESTINATION

WWW.UNIVERSALSTUDIOS.COM/STUDIO

UNIVERSAL
TECHNICAL OPERATIONS

69
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American Cinematographer - February 2007

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