The Hurt Locker: the specialist writing

The three set options, of which your school chooses one: Option A, Finding the Frame; Option B, What Makes a Film Independent?; and Option C, this film's review. You write about the one your school chose, naming it at the start of your answer, and don't mix writers.
Option C, the set review: Tara McKelvey's 'Pro or Anti War' (The American Prospect, 2009) and its key ideas: that a film presented as anti-war makes combat thrilling, that its camerawork puts us on the American soldiers' side, and that home is shown as dull beside war.
Options A and B applied to this film: framing and composition in Finding the Frame, and genre, narrative, look and point of view in What Makes a Film Independent?
Testing each idea against key sequences: moments that support it and moments that don't, and a reasoned view of your own.
A worked answer to a 15-mark practice question on the specialist writing, naming the option used and using one of its ideas and one key sequence.
Worked answers with their marks, and 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.

What you need to know