Defining Film Eras and Genres by "Look"

The most obvious example is black and white vs. color. But it isn't quite that simple, is it? Color starts off as unnatural Technicolor. At some point, film grain disappeared. All sorts of things are going on. The 1980s were in love with gratuitous color filters on the top third of the screen to give a sense of atmosphere for outdoor shots. You can often tell when a film was made just by looking at it. How many useful categories are there? How many buckets can we describe? How many eras? Here I am talking about stuff that is not really intentional, or if it is, it was considered "best practices" for the time, just the water people were swimming in, the air they were breathing. Not the distinctive trend setting stuff, but the stuff that was definitively the trend even if only artifactually (e.g., the common look of a kind of 35 mm film stock).

I understand what you're trying to get at, but no, the short answer is there is no surefire way to define eras by the "look" alone. Below are twelve film stills...




...all of which are from films released in 1939. In any given year depending on the studio, the budget, the genre, and any other number of factors, obviously films had very different "looks". As for genre, there are usually many indicators other than the kind of film stock used that clue one into what genre you are watching. And if you have any level of film knowledge and recognize any of the actors, that will usually narrow down the time period, as well as often give one a good guess at the genre since both stars and character actors tend to appear in many of the same types of projects over their careers, if they are successful. Especially in the older Studio System.

Until the early 1950s there was a least a common aspect ratio, so no matter how lavish or cheap the production it was at least a square. But you also have to account for technical things like the quality of the print or the video transfer. If you find a working VCR and pop in some old tapes, just going by the "look" many films from widely different eras and genres may start to all seem the same, visually, because they are all cropped and washed out, anyway.

Even when you find genres that have identifiable styles for periods of time, at their height those ingredients are only the norm and there are always examples of films that subvert or challenge those norms, and then over time the norms change. If you want to say RKO crime pictures of the 1940s all generally have a similar look and feel, OK, nobody is gonna fight you much. But as soon as you start saying all Westerns are this, or all Technicolor films from this seven year period are that, then one can very quickly point to major and minor exceptions.

I don't see much point in such an exercise...but knock yerself out, Pal.


For the record the 1939 films pictured above are Gone with the Wind, Ninotchka, Jesse James, The Return of Doctor X, The Wizard of Oz, Destry Rides Again, Gunga Din, The Little Princess, Intermezzo, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Roaring Twenties, and The Mikado

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

What you say seems to indicate a worthy task. If we could just "Google" the answer to the question, there wouldn't be much point in discussing it.

And I think that there is a "something" here of which to speak. I can often tell what year a film was made (plus or minus two years) just by looking at it. I am sure I am not the only one. Despite the variations and the exceptions, there are patterns, norms, and regular artifacts (e.g., grain, reel markers, old tri-color processing) that offer a family resemblance. It hard to put one's finger on such family features, but like Justice Potter "we know it when we see it."

We need not say what features each member of a family must possess to identify them as members of the family. Not all are redheaded, not all have hazel eyes, not all have detached earlobes, not all have aquiline noses, etc., yet there is still such a thing as a family resemblance. If our quest was that of detailing the necessary features, I imagine the counterexamples would be devastating. However, if we're speaking of typical features, we can accept variations around an average.

And there are various ways to group films. Some studios, for example, have has a particular stamp on their films. Hammer Horror films, for example, just have the look about them, don't they? I have sometimes found myself saying that "X looks like an old Hammer Horror flick," because the stamp is detectable. The exercise is not necessarily restricted to year or genre.

The 70s had this desaturated look to them - and when you consider technical advances, the changes in film stock, lenses, etc, you could probably get a rough feel for a decade, sure. But this is probably a question best asked at places like Cinematograophy.com, where they have specific expertise on such things (they're a good resource whenever I'm trying to figure out just what was being done camera-wise on a film).