Pillow Talk: film form in key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
Pillow Talk: film form in key sequences
Pillow Talk
What you need to know
Key sequences to know in detail: the opening telephone calls on the party line, the split-screen bath scene, and the ending.
Cinematography and lighting: soft-focus close-ups of Jan, low-key lighting in Brad's apartment, and the widescreen frame.
Mise-en-scène: Jan's pastel apartment and changing costumes, and Brad's bachelor apartment with its gadgets.
Editing and sound: split screens that place the couple side by side, superimposed montages of New York, voice-overs that reveal their thoughts, and Doris Day singing over the titles.
How the film represents gender: Jan as a successful single woman who is still pursued and rescued, Brad's masculinity, and the film's jokes about sexuality.
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.
