Girlhood: contexts and key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
Girlhood: contexts and key sequences
Girlhood
What you need to know
Girlhood (Céline Sciamma, 2014): Marieme, a teenager in the suburbs of Paris facing a controlling older brother and a future of low-paid work, joins a gang of three girls led by Lady, renames herself Vic, and tries to find her own way.
A French film by Céline Sciamma, a 'banlieue' film with a cast of young, non-professional Black women.
Class, ethnicity and gender in the Paris suburbs, and how rarely such young women are seen on screen.
Key sequences to know in detail: the opening American football game, the 'Diamonds' scene in the hotel room, and the fight.
Cinematography and mise-en-scène: close framing of the friends together and isolating shots of Marieme alone, shallow focus, the blue light of the hotel scene, and costume and hair as identity.
Editing and sound: continuity editing at a slow pace, Rihanna's 'Diamonds', and the electronic score.
The few short lines of dialogue that matter most in these sequences, a few words each.
Short answers of the kind the first parts of the Section B question ask for: naming and describing a character, and explaining how a technique introduces them.
How to answer each part: the marks, and what the short identify and explain parts need as well as the extended answer, since naming a technique instead of a specific example from the film loses marks there. Practice questions to try, each headed 'Practice question' with its marks.
Quote only short lines of dialogue you're sure of, a few words at a time, and base every point on what happens in the finished film.
