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The Birth of a Nation Single Film Study

Barry Rainsford | Wednesday November 29, 2017

Categories: OCR A Level, Drama, History, War, The Birth of a Nation, David Wark Griffith, Silent Era, A Level, Film Analysis, Films & Case Studies, Non-Hollywood Films, Genres & Case Studies, Analysis

YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9UPOkIpR0A

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Rationale

Section A of Paper 1 focuses upon the micro-elements of film form and the construction of meaning and response by both filmmaker and spectator, with a particular focus on US films from the Silent Era to 1990.

Knowledge and understanding of film form and its key terms will be developed through:

  • studying the micro-elements of film form
  • identifying how these elements construct meanings and contribute to the aesthetics of film
  • an appreciation of film poetics: film as a constructed artefact, resulting from processes of selection and combination

The purpose of this OCR Single Film Study guide is to provide a starting point for your own research and consideration of how each of the three films studied reveals ideas of how film language (the micro-elements of film form) create meaning and the response of audience spectators to this.

As such, the focus of this guide is not to provide a review or details of plot and narrative but to indicate how the micro-elements of lighting, sound, editing, performance etc. construct a look, a style of film that shapes how audiences respond to its ideas and intentions – film as a powerful emotional event that has manipulated audience feelings and attitudes since the silent era.

The work in this guide is linked by the Edusites OCR Film Studies…


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