The representation of gender throughout the clip is quite stereotypical. Throughout the clip there are many male characters than female’s characters, this highlights the stereotypical role that men are stronger and powerful.
The clip begins with a shop assistant being quite rude towards a lower class customer. In the background the audience can see a more upper class female walking towards the more pricy dresses. The director uses a low angle shot from the shop assistants point of view looking down at the customer, this highlights that he doesn’t treat his customers fairly. Also the non-diegetic sound at the beginning when the upper class lady walks in emphasises that she’s more important as when the diegetic sound of “a little too rich for madam” is said the music stops and as she leaves the non-diegetic sound plays again and a close up of the upper class lady is shown to highlight her wealthiness through an expensive diamond ring. The shop assistant appears to have more time with the upper class lady, this highlights that he is interested in lots of money compared to the other woman. The audience can tell this as the more lower class lady was dressed in a casual red coat and messy grey hair whereas the upper class lady she was dressed in a smart grey suit and nice blonde hair, this clearly highlights Levi-Strauss binary oppositions.
A wipe cut from left to right is used to show the next scene where the audience can see a tilt shot from the upper class lady’s’ heels tilting all the way up to highlight her long black evening dress with jewels all over the back of the dress. The diegetic sound ‘I’ll take it’ emphasises her wealthiness as the dress is very expensive. As she says this she is playing with her ring which draws more attention to it, this is forecasting what might happen next as she then loses it.
The next scene shows a clear mid shot of two men drinking whiskey at a bar table. The older man appears to be dressed smarter than the other man; also the lighting used in the room is more focused on him as the other man is more in the dark and smoking with smoke around him. The non-diegetic sound in this scene doesn’t play; this highlights the diegetic sound to be more important. Towards the end of this scene the conversation begins to get more secretive.
Going back to the shop, a close up of the lady opening her bag is used as she realises she’s missing her ring, the non-diegetic sound gets faster. ‘My husband will kill me’ ‘You have no idea in how much trouble I’m in’, this connotates that her husband has a lot of power over her and she’s worried due to having lost the ring. This links back to the representation of gender that men have been stereotypically represented as the powerful gender. As she looks for the ring all over the shop floor the director has got a camera man following her and having a shaky camera to add more tension to the scene, this is so the audience can see things from her point of view. ‘I’m already late for my hairdressers appointment’, this emphasises the woman’s high class as she’s making sure she looks good all the time which is what many females want to make sure. Also again she highlights how much money she has; “I want the entire shop searched, I’ll give you two, five thousand pounds cash to whoever finds it. Here’s my card”. The shop assistant again shows the audience that he is interested in money as he says “You can rely on me” and the woman looks into the camera and replies “I’m sure I can’.
The next scene begins with the shop assistant on his knees looking for the ring where the camera uses a tilt movement to show the audience a more high class male character in the shop. Also low angle shots from the male looking down at the shop assistant is used to highlight that he has more power than him and is more important than the woman that lost her ring. The shop assistant says “I’ll be with you in a moment”, this again continues to highlight that he is interested in getting that five thousand pounds as she completely ignores that he has customers in his shop. The non-diegetic sound begins to get louder and faster when a close up of the upper class man holding the diamond ring, by having this close up represents that the ring is significant and important in the clip. When the shop assistant heard the man saying he found the ring he was eager to get the ring off of him. When the two men are talking about the situation a lot of shot reverse shots are used, this is so that the audience can see the point of view of each character. Here we can see that the shop is very high class, with lots of long black elegant dresses, white walls and many mirrors. As the upper class man walks away saying “3,2,1” he looks directly into the camera smiling, this represents the representational issue as higher class always wins.
No comments:
Post a Comment