Suffragette Film Analysis

Suffragette was an extremely gripping and inspirational film which followed the life of a lady named Maud Watts in the late 19^th century. The representation of women in the film is exactly what the stereotype of women suggests whereby the women were seen as weak, working all day, seen as the mother, the cook, the unimportant one. This representation was highlighted through the use of cinematography, whereby a lot of close up shots were used to emphasise the pain and suffering upon these women’s faces which, at times was extremely effective because you really felt for the character.

That being one of the technical codes, another shot that stood out to me was a long shot of the boss of the laundrette factory looking out at the women behind a glass window while they were working. It was an over the shoulder shot which allowed the audience to see exactly what the boss was seeing. I thought this was extremely significant because the window made the women look as though they were trapped, and that the boss (a male) was the key to this room. Also the fact that the glass was slightly distorted meant that the women’s faces couldn’t be seen clearly which perceptively could suggest that women didn’t need to be seen nor heard, but they just needed to be seen doing this hard, manual work by a man

 In terms of audio codes, at one point in the film there was a constant beating like a heartbeat. This went on for a good minute and I think it was significant because it almost represented the footsteps of the suffragettes as though they were marching in a troop, but it could also be seen that the constant beating could represent the on-going putting down of women by men, and the constant telling off, and being told what to do by men every day.  Another moment was when Emily Davison was hit by the horse, all sound and noise was completely cut and this particular scene was in dead silence. I believe this represented that at the moment of time this occurred, all the putting down of women, the lack of belief in them, the thought that women are worthless was stopped for a second, and the vulnerability of Emily Davison was highlighted and emphasised because the silence meant all we as an audience could do was watch this awful thing happen to her, and all the discrimination against women was stopped for these couple of seconds.

Maud Watts

The visual codes helped to connote a lot about the film itself. I am aware that during the time period, women would only wear quite dark colours, but that in itself is significant because it shows that by them not wearing brighter colours, they weren’t given the opportunity to be happy or to excel in the talents they were best at because these grey and brown outfits were almost draining the life and colour out of them.

Women were not the only group of people to be represented in this film. Men were represented as nasty and manipulating. This is significant because both genders were represented negatively in this film, even though the idea of the film was about the negative view on women. Another thing in the film I found interesting was the speed of judgement the neighbours had on Maud Watts. The second that she was advertised in the paper for being part of the Suffragette movement, all the neighbours and workers knew, and had no time for her anymore. This highlights the fact that women were so alone and vulnerable at the time, and when this was shown in the film, Maud was standing underneath a lamp in the street which displays she was in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Overall I really enjoyed this film and found it so interesting at the end when the credits named all the countries and when women gained the vote, and the fact Saudi Arabia only got the vote this year hit me hard because women are still voting to be equal to men even today.