Invasion of the Body Snatchers: film form in key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
Invasion of the Body Snatchers: film form in key sequences
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
What you need to know
Key sequences to know in detail: the opening, the discovery of the pods in the greenhouse, and the ending on the highway.
Cinematography and lighting: canted angles, high angles over the town, noir shadows and venetian-blind lighting, and the close-up of Miles speaking to camera.
Mise-en-scène: the ordinary small town, the greenhouse and the pods, and the clinical hospital.
Editing and sound: continuity editing, a dissolve into flashback, a dramatic score, and sirens as a motif.
How the film represents gender (Becky, and women's fears dismissed), authority and the small community.
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.
