Film movements overview: silent cinema and experimental film 1960 to 2000

This overview maps the WJEC Component 2 film movements study: silent cinema and experimental film 1960 to 2000. Both ask you to analyse film beyond the mainstream feature, through the core study areas, with context central.

What this study covers

You study two kinds of film from outside the mainstream tradition: silent cinema (film made before synchronised sound) and experimental film 1960 to 2000 (avant-garde cinema that departs from mainstream narrative). The point is to broaden your understanding of what film can be and do, and to analyse each on its own terms rather than by the conventions of the mainstream sound feature.

The core study areas at work

Both film movements are read through the core study areas, with particular emphases.

• Film form. For silent film, visual storytelling, editing and the score; for experimental film, the alternative uses of form and structure.
• Meaning and response. Especially the aesthetic experience, which both silent and experimental film often foreground.
• The contexts of film. The historical, technological and aesthetic context of each, decisive to understanding it.

The topics

This module has two pages.

1. Silent cinema. How silent film creates meaning without synchronised dialogue, its techniques, and its major styles and movements.
2. Experimental film 1960 to 2000. How experimental cinema departs from mainstream narrative, its alternative organising principles, and how to value it. Narrative is the specialist study area here.

How to study this topic

These films reward understanding on their own terms.

1. Analyse the form first. Foreground visual storytelling and the score for silent film; the alternative use of form for experimental film.
2. Place each film in its movement. Comedy, Expressionism or montage for silent film; the avant-garde tradition for experimental film.
3. Focus on narrative for experimental film. Identify how the film uses, transforms or rejects storytelling, and what holds it together instead.
4. Value the experience. Both often foreground the aesthetic; analyse the experience the form produces.
5. Judge in context. Read every choice through historical and aesthetic context, not by mainstream standards.

Where this fits in the exam

This study is assessed in Component 2 (Global filmmaking perspectives). For the official specification, past papers and mark schemes, see eduqas.co.uk, and always revise from the current specification because question style is board-specific.