Dracula: film form in key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
Dracula: film form in key sequences
Dracula
What you need to know
Key sequences to know in detail: the arrival at Castle Dracula, and Van Helsing and the mirror.
Cinematography and lighting: extreme long shots of the castle's decaying hall, low and high angles on the staircase, beams of light on Dracula's eyes, and the rare tracking shots that make him seem unnatural.
Mise-en-scène: the vast, cobwebbed castle against Dr Seward's comfortable modern house, and Dracula's evening dress, cape and medallion against Renfield's modern suit.
Editing and sound: plain continuity editing, close-ups of victims answered by Dracula's stare, cutaways that keep violence off screen, and an early sound film with almost no music: creaking doors, howling wolves and silence.
How the film represents gender (Lucy and Mina as victims, the male experts as protectors) and foreignness through Dracula.
The few short lines of dialogue that matter most in these sequences, a few words each.
A worked answer to a practice stepped question on one element of film form in a key sequence: identify an example (1 mark), explain it (4 marks) and explore it in at least one key sequence (10 marks).
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.
