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The earliest period films were about times before film, ancient Rome or 17th century pirates, and I assume they were shot just like any other movie of their time. They followed the best practices, the current state of the art, to get the best possible image onto the screen.
I'm not sure when Hollywood first tried to create a vintage look via cinematography, but I get a kick out of films that look back to a historically recent era that had its own cinematic signature, and re-create the look. The big thing I notice is bright lighting and beautiful color saturation.
MAD MEN was universally acclaimed as gorgeous-looking in its early seasons, portraying circa-1965 Manhattan; probably less so as they head for 1969 and a grungier culture.
FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002) is set in 1957. Based on:
- All That Heaven Allows (1955)
- Imitation of Life (1959)
- The Reckless Moment (1949)
DOWN WITH LOVE (2003) is set in 1962. Based on:
- Pillow Talk (1959)
- Lover Come Back (1961)
- Send Me No Flowers (1964)
THE GIRL (2012) is set in 1963, concerning Alfred Hitchcock's obsession with Tippi Hedron.
STAR TREK CONTINUES (the web series starring Vic Mignogna as Captain Kirk): I saw a making-of video, and the cinematographer was saying that he re-created how the 1960s TV show was lit, and "...it's not how 'good lighting' is supposed to look today" but it looks just right for STAR TREK.
I'm sure there are other examples. I think it's ironic that the best-looking films today are the ones that walk away from today's state of the art in color and lighting.
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If we're talking lighting and technical ambience evocations, 'The Aviator' captures not so much the cinematic colours of the '30s as the general graphic design feel of that perod.
Nowadays these effects are much easier to achieve using digital filters and post-prod than ever before. We're supposed to be living in a post-modern world where any style can be sampled that fits the artistic concept, but it's a less utilized option than might be. It's still follow the herd.
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The Sirk films are just breathtaking to look at, aren't they?
So pleasing to the eye.
I'm not finding anything for Sirk but towns in Iran and Slovakia. A little more info?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirk
Slightly not what you were looking for, but the same principle - Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein was a brilliant 1970s recreation of those Universal films of the 30s and 40s.
No, that's a perfect example.
Here's an example of period work that I was excited about when it was coming up, but ended up hating: the AMC show HALT AND CATCH FIRE. It's set in 1983, so I wasn't expecting a big to-do with the cinematography, but they give the footage some kind of horrible digital treatment in post production to make the whole show look dull and pale green. It's a sickly vision and nothing like what 1980s films really looked liked. Literally the whole show is like being trapped in a room with defective fluorescent lighting that makes you nauseous.
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I think this Gregg Araki movie, White Bird in a Blizzard, with Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, and Christopher Meloni, is an '80s/GenX disillusionment/malaise kind of thing. I can't wait to see it.
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I get a kick out of films that look back to a historically recent era that had its own cinematic signature, and re-create the look.
One film that certainly meets these criteria is Steven Soderbergh's THE GOOD GERMAN (2006). Soderbergh shot it as if it was being made in 1945, using only the tools, cameras, sound equipment, and lighting of the day. No radio microphones were used, the film was lit with only incandescent lights, and period lenses were used on the cameras.
It was in black and white with a 1.66:1 aspect ratio. This was actually an accommodation for today's theaters. All 1940s films were 1:33:1 - the ratio of a television - but many current theaters cannot support that ratio, so it was "upped" to the more standard 1.66:1. And even this was a kludge, as the prints were set up for matted projection at 1.85:1, with black bars on the sides. (I'm not sure why they didn't go all the way and just put the 1.33:1 frame into a 1.85:1 box. Perhaps that would have overly reduced the available projectable image and hurt picture quality.) For video, the ratio was returned to the director's preferred 1.33:1.
Soderbergh did hedge his bets on the sound, with the film being released in the three standard digital sound formats, and not in '40s-accurate optical mono sound. The movie was shot exclusively on sound stages with all location work being done near Los Angeles. As authentic as Berlin looks, none of it is real, except for newsreel excerpts.
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Remember the 1985 MOONLIGHTING episode, "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice"? It was filmed as a tribute to 1940s film noir.
Well, I just saw a 2014 episode of BONES that was apparently based on TO CATCH A THIEF (1955):
In 1950s Hollywood, Brennan (Emily Deschanel) is a pioneering female detective, and Booth is a glamorous jewel thief in the mold of Cary Grant. Her father is the police chief. She gets suspended from the force and teams up with Booth (David Boreanaz) to solve a murder.
The episode has high color saturation and bright lighting, good costumes and sets, good outdoor views of the older buildings that were there in the 1950s, nice period automobiles (with intentionally unconvincing driving scenes shot on a rear-screen projection stage), and a dash of period makeup and hair for the women.
Drawbacks: it's shot in HD digital video and looks like it, probably to keep young viewers from tuning out. They chose not to capture the look and texture of period film. The people making it had no real feel for the period culture as Hitchcock would have portrayed it, either. But the big action climax with a silver DC-3 in flight is fantastic. That alone was worth the price of admission.
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MUNICH (2005) captures details of 1972-1973 extremely well.
INHERENT VICE (2014) - 1970
THE WAY, WAY BACK (2013) is a weird example. Is it taking place in 1985 or the 2010s? Kind of both as it was originally written to take place in the 1980s, but changed (budget problems, no doubt) to be comtemporary giving it an odd "take your pick" floating reality.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) takes place in 1980, but we only know that because of an oblique reference that Javier Bardem makes about a coin. It otherwise has no obvious temporal markers.
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