Great looking historical period films

I really don't need to add to my "to watch" list but can't resist. Doesn't have to be historically accurate, it can be fantasy or even contemporary with the setting/clothes appeal of a historical film.

Off the top of my head: The Piano, Gemini (Tsukamoto), A Royal Affair and Renoir.

Is Effie Gray any good?

Polanski's Tess

Boogie Nights.

Barry Lyndon

Is Effie Gray any good?

No idea, but Effie Briest is.

City Of Sadness - Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Ran - Akira Kurosawa
Barry Lyndon - Kubrick - xp'ed

but Barry Lyndon is worth posting twice.

La Reine Margot

Andrei Rublev

Pasolini's Oedipus Rex

The Leopard
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2010/06/27/arts/KEHR-Jp/KEHR-Jp-popup.jpg

oh gosh yeah, The Leopard is exquisite

I've had La Reine Margot on my list for a while and yes, it does look amazing. Maybe Blanche by Borowczyk, but his films can look a tad grubby.

I thought The Libertine looked surprisingly lush.

kinda cheating but The Wind Rises

the color of pomegranates

there is something about barry lyndon that makes me feel like i'm immersed in a genuinely remote world, not just watching actors dressed up in period costumes and behaving like 20th century people with funny accents and names, but seeing people behaving and speaking in the slightly alien and unfamiliar way i'd expect from a social world that existed hundreds of years ago

tbh i'd really love to see more films that took a similar approach, but i'm not really sure how it could happen, since its presence in barry lyndon seems half-accidental, a product of kubrick's usual distancing technique and his off-kilter approach to directing his actors. like, could you make a film about e.g. ancient rome, or gilgamesh's mesopotamia, that felt like that?

oh gosh yeah, The Leopard is exquisite

Oh God yes. Plus Claudia Cardinale.

Amour Fou: http://www.amourfoufilm.com/uploads/tx_templavoila/AmourFou_MPvR_57_5_kl.jpg

bright star: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/a9/fc/af/a9fcafdeb5283b58ddfb8802a09bc571.jpg

The early-mid 90s was a golden era of the period piece.

Angels and Insects (1995)

https://i2.wp.com/www.frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/angelsinsects-ballgowns.jpg

Clarissa (1991)

http://www.compleatseanbean.com/clarissa5.jpg

Ridicule (1996)

https://i0.wp.com/www.frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/1995-jeff2.jpg

Earrings of Madame De...
The Emigrants
Amour Fou

to name three of hundreds

not a movie but i've been loving the look and feel of The Knick — definitely get a bit of a Barry Lyndon vibe from it (even though it's a different time period.

The Virgin Suicides.

I'm only being partly silly--even the original post says "it can be fantasy or even contemporary with the setting/clothes appeal of a historical film." A great-looking and meticulous recreation of the '70s is just as valid to me as Barry Lyndon (which, yes, looks amazing).

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)

here is something about barry lyndon that makes me feel like i'm immersed in a genuinely remote world, not just watching actors dressed up in period costumes and behaving like 20th century people with funny accents and names, but seeing people behaving and speaking in the slightly alien and unfamiliar way i'd expect from a social world that existed hundreds of years ago

tbh i'd really love to see more films that took a similar approach, but i'm not really sure how it could happen, since its presence in barry lyndon seems half-accidental, a product of kubrick's usual distancing technique and his off-kilter approach to directing his actors. like, could you make a film about e.g. ancient rome, or gilgamesh's mesopotamia, that felt like that?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), 6. februar 2017 23:47 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are quite a lot of films that try to first and foremost immerse you in the time period that they're about, rather than portraying them, if that kinda makes sense with what you talk about? Many of them run into the problem where what seems important in hindsight rarely does so in the present, so really immersive period films can often seem impenetrable. A good example is The Assassin - talk about great looking! - which many people found really hard to understand, but in it's historical context really makes quite a lot of sense. It's just that it's characters don't get the context they're acting in either, and the film only hints obliquely at what is coming. I think Barry Lyndon gets around this because it's main character is so solipsistic as well, so there's never any frustrating/thrilling sense that something more important is happening right out of frame.

I could go on and on Restoration/Ancien Regime films...

Draughtman's Contract (1982)

http://cineplex.media.baselineresearch.com/images/94187/94187_full.jpg

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996) THE ONE WITH ALEX KINGSTON, DO NOT SETTLE FOR LESS.

http://a2.tvspielfilm.de/imedia/0400/1930400,F0NlQMCPyrrIMoQAk7mMp5ani7sDx+N6xcFOD4ZlSGm3Y+UTbf09pMQVc4mLR42ksrrwE7ue9otRmR433VrFjQ==.jpg

Mr. Turner (Mike Leigh)

― Everything Moves Towards The Sun (Ross),

and Topsy-Turvy

not a movie but i've been loving the look and feel of The Knick — definitely get a bit of a Barry Lyndon vibe from it (even though it's a different time period.

― tylerw, Monday, 6 February 2017 23:49

I've only seen a few episodes but the Chinese(?) areas really wowed me.

Tis A Pity She's A Whore is quite nice but a bit silly.

Sansho the Bailiff
Gate of Hell
Kwaidan
The Magnificent Ambersons

Dangerous Liaisons
Fanny and Alexander
and as infamous as it is, Heaven's Gate is pretty stunning to look at.

Days Of Heaven

and good grief yes, The Leopard is a must for anyone reading this thread.

not a movie but I currently watch the tv show "war & peace" and it looks pretty good.
especially the army uniforms !

in a very different way, Rohmer's "l'anglaise et le duc" is interesting as he used paintings of old Paris instead of real sets.
http://buf.com/films/langlaise-et-le-duc/

and the already mentioned "Draughtsman's Contract" by Greenaway is magnificent (like many others here).

great thread

Seeing as RAG also asks for 'fantasy', I also want to put in a word for the early full colour Hammer films shot by Jack Asher, the Poe/Corman films shot by Floyd Crosby, and various Italian horror movies by the likes of Bava and Freda - post-Vertigo candy-coloured Gothic nightmares, inhabiting a historical never never land, all lovingly decorated and costumed.

There's lots of Hong Kong films but trying to think of some special in this regard.
Same with peplum/sword & sandals and medieval films. Indian films are a complete blind spot for me.

These are overwhelmingly long but a quick skim might refresh memories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_period_drama_films_and_series
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_period_drama_films_set_in_Asia

I think McCabe & Mrs. Miller is great looking but my definition of 'great looking' may differ from others'.

Re: Indian Film

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLASLzQhOqQ

The Virgin Suicides.

I'm only being partly silly--even the original post says "it can be fantasy or even contemporary with the setting/clothes appeal of a historical film." A great-looking and meticulous recreation of the '70s is just as valid to me as Barry Lyndon (which, yes, looks amazing).

― clemenza, Monday, February 6, 2017 6:51 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Same w/Spielberg's Munich.

La Nuit De Varennes
Fellini Casanova
The Founder
Silence
Pretty much any Mizoguchi set pre-20th century

In the Mood for Love seems an easy Hong Kong choice

The Leopard

See also Senso and Ludwig. I assume we could probably put Visconti's complete catalog under this heading?

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

http://www.cinestylography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Picnic-at-Hanging-Rock-movie-11.jpg

Multiple periods and genders: Orlando (1992)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5d/3c/e2/5d3ce2dc079c6b4d35c93b83cbcb0e88.jpg
https://i2.wp.com/www.frockflicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1992-Orlando1.jpg

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a great call up thread - watched it recently and it's one of the most evocative movies I've ever seen visually. Many scenes in the school are packed with almost occult symbolism (including lots of mirrors). A treat for the eyes really.

really love Monty Python & The Holy Grail's mucky, foggy medieval England.

The Duellists

https://iknowwhereimgoing.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/vlcsnap-2013-06-25-15h51m02s99.png

Duelists is good. But better if you fantasize about the young Keitel.

http://silverscreenmodes.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Duellists-screen-2-672x372.jpg

The Conformist

Getting into fantasy again, Duke Of Burgundy and Morgiana have a really great look. Tale Of Tales too.

Barry Lyndon is such a great choice not just cos it looks great and has good costume design, it was shot with natural light, meaning it more or less looks exactly how it would have looked before the electric light.

i like Amadeus's glam baroque style

https://media.giphy.com/media/z6CuYOlY3h2aA/giphy.gif

FrockFlicks, a stirringly opinionated site on these films, has a few choice words on Amadeus

Admittedly, I probably wouldn't have nearly as great an interest in period film if it didn't provide an excuse for heaving bosoms on film. Does this make me a bad person?

most of these films just make me wonder what the poor people of the time were doing/looked like

Field in England is gorgeous

(specifically referring to European elite costume dramas listed)

A Serious Man evokes a very different '60s feel too

to Llewyn Davis I mean

A Serious Man evokes a very different '60s feel too

They filmed scenes in my (downscale) neighborhood grocery as it hadn't been updated since the 60s.

Berlin Alexanderplatz

another Kubrick: Paths of Glory

perfectly captures an era still caught between 19th & 20th centuries

Les Enfants du Paradis
Lola Montes
The Scarlet Empress
Forever Amber maybe?

loads of Ken Russell films, esp The Devils, Lisztomania + Savage Messiah

A Room With a View

and, I assume but haven't seen, other Merchant-Ivory films

Partie De Campagne

Pialat's "Van Gogh"!

(I can watch that one over and over)

I never saw that one - I watched the Altman Van Gogh which came out roughly at the same time. Might have to check that one out.

Is Altman's Van Gogh flick worth a look? The biopic is generally my least favourite film genre but, although it directly preceded The Player (officially his big 90s comeback, after a decade spent in the wilderness), I do remember it getting a good deal of praise at the time.

I liked it a lot at the time. The Gauguin character is probably more spot on than Roth's Van Gogh. But it still seemed quite moving at the time. It's more about his caring brother's essential patronage and his mental illness than the overwrought genius stuff.

I lied it a lot also. I don't think it looked all that good though. I supposed it was doing s now looks like then thing.

The Altman is good but Pialat's is on a whole 'nother level.

Pialat's Van Gogh is fantastic - and when Jacques Dutronc puts on a hat in the film, he looks a lot like Jandek!

I watched most of The Leopard last night. You all were right, it is stunning.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/7f/f7/94/7ff794f6d6ca61c5d0941286a1c283ff.jpg

you don't do multiple sittings for a Leopard viewing :(

I saw The Leopard projected once with an awkwardly placed 'intermission' enforced by the venue dividing up that long dialog scene w/Lancaster and his friend up in the hills.

It was 1 am, I couldn't keep going. Finished now though. What a great film. The ball scene is just perfect.

Larrain's "NO"

No

No pun intended. But it looks like crappy video shit. By design, and I like the film, and adore the director more and more, but it doesn't look 'good'...

Has anybody seen S. Bondarchuk's "War&Peace" ?
It's supposed to be a 7h (!) masterpiece.

War & Peace was a state propaganda project. In the battle of Borodino, some 100,000 Soviet soldiers from near Moscow garrisons were lent to the production, so all of those moving masses in the distant background are Soviet battalions doing parade drills. The Russian MoD hosts [this sequence](http://eng.mil.ru/en/multimedia/video/films/more.htm?id=2045@morfVideoAudioFile) on their website.

However, Bondarchuk is fascinated with goofy/distracting camera angles (eg, at Borodino, an overhead shot taken on a 300 m zip-line traversing the melee at the Raevsky redoubt), and the editing is fairly jarring/abyssmal in court dialogue scenes. Acting is also overwrought/theatrical rather that cinematic. So while I recommend everyone see it at least once, practically obligatory for anyone interested in the Napoleonic Wars, I wouldn't say its great looking.

Anyone seen the German film Paula from last year?

Frederik B wrong re: "NO". It's shot on crappy video hence the "crappy video shit" look but it captures the look of an early '80s Latin America (in this instance Argentina) perfectly. Having spent a lot of time in early '80s Colombia I can vouch for this.

Polanski's Tess

― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Monday, February 6, 2017 4:28 PM (three months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes.

NO takes place neither in Argentina nor in the early eighties...

Sorry. Chile, late '80s. A massive difference. You win.

A massive difference.

Well, yeah...

Anyways, my point was just that it's not particularly supposed to be what I'd call 'great looking'. As I said, I like the film, and I adore the crappy video look.

The Banquet/Legend Of The Black Scorpion

Aguirre: The Wrath of God definitely has that "immersed in a genuinely remote world" feel mentioned upthread.

Yes! I once remember hearing a quote from Kubrick second-hand (so I dunno if its legit, and I certainly ain't quoting it properly) about how with Barry Lyndon he wanted to make a period piece that was so accurate that watching it was like visiting an alien planet. As much as I love BL, I think Aguirre achieves that more effectively than any film I've ever seen.

Aguirre is a minor miracle, and no one involved ever topped it.

Also...

Campion's Bright Star is very pretty.
http://images3.static-bluray.com/reviews/2857_5_large.jpg

Ebiri on Bondarchuk's War and Peace, referenced above. I really can't find the time to see it at Lincoln Center, hoping I'll get to see it at home later this year.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/the-wild-story-behind-sergei-bondarchuks-epic-war-and-peace.html

The Favourite
Mr Turner

I haven't seen The Favourite or Farewell My Queen but I assumed the latter was a new film. Maybe it just got a boost from the association.

Leigh's new one, "Peterloo", great looking as well but not half the film "Mr Turner" was. As I was watching I wished he would just make a killer William Blake biopic - "Peterloo" captures the look and feel of Blake's England.

"Rembrandt Fecit"
"Goya In Bordeaux"

Angelique series from the 60s starring Michele Mercier - classic or dud?

Loved Portrait Of A Lady On Fire last night, especially as I've been a bit worried by how so many films look recently, this gives me a bit of hope.

I'm sure I've seen something else in the past year, maybe The Lighthouse?

Matteo Garrone's Dior advert is pretty damn nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYOrGvVh7mk

15 minutes mind

Been hunting around for gothic romance films. Dragonwyck was only out on bluray a few years ago and now goes for silly money. Corridor Of Mirrors is only on region A bluray. Annoying.

Some baffling choices in here but it's extensive
https://www.silverpetticoatreview.com/gothic-romance-movies-tv-shows-period-dramas/

I seen Corrdior Of Mirrors, it looks lovely, a shame that Edana Romney had such a short acting career and it seems like it was a fight to keep this role (and she co-written it). It's Christopher Lee's first big screen appearance (he's an acquaintance at the night club)

Enki Bilal did a movie on the moon set in the future but went way retro for visuals

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EXAcZhiWkAASIYa.jpg