The name given to a particularly stylised form of cinema, in which the elements of shot and editing are mobilised primarily to evoke powerful feeling in an audience. Originating in Germany in the 1920s, the trademarks are high contrast of light and dark (and, later, colour), extreme camera angles and shot composition, and powerful music. The melodramas of the 1940s and 1950s, right up to contemporary horror films and maybe even some TV 'soaps', all are indebted to Expressionism.