In the wake of mass media criticism, the field of contemporary image theory increasingly mobilizes the metaphor of "flow". Today, man is immersed in a continuous flow of visual stimuli from which he can hardly escape. Cinema and television - through the continuous editing operation that defines them - generate a specific temporal experience, where the more or less sustained rhythm of the images floods the screens with visual information. According to Rancière, in documentary cinema, the flow also gives way to images of another type: indeterminate or a-signifying shots, moments of suspension, taken in the diegesis of the film but without obvious justification. They are "like stasis of action, moments of rest or dream" (cf. "Figures de l'histoire"), which break the flow or diffract it.