Fassbinder trades on the tricks of his Hollywood mentors, especially Sirk, in creating an always sunlit environment for his heroine, the “perfect” middle-class wife and mother, to go mad in. Soon after the birth of her child, Margot (Margit Carstensen) experiences a depression that is exacerbated by her fear that she is becoming schizophrenic. Fassbinder brilliantly employs his famous mirror shots so that subjective and objective views of Margot are experienced simultaneously, both illustrating and confirming her fears. Disproving Roosevelt's famous axiom, Fear of Fear is more than an examination of free-floating anxiety; rather, as Vincent Canby noted, “it is about the autumn of materialism in the form of an intensely personal case history of a schizophrenic. As in the world where she lives, everything is perfect for Margot, yet nothing works.”