Old Colour Photographs - pt 2

In continuation from the post about Old Colour Photography and in particular war photography, I have decided to compare scenes from modern day films covering that era and genuine imagery from then. Arguably the most well known modern film that covers part of World War 2 is Saving Private Ryan (1998).  Its use of desaturation and shaky camera work throughout gives it a distinct look, one which has been emulated since.

"Spielberg once again collaborated with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. "Early on, we both knew that we did not want this to look like a technicolor extravaganza about World War II, but more like color newsreel footage from the 1940s, which is very desaturated and low-tech," Spielberg says.
Kaminski had the protective coating stripped from the camera lenses, making them closer to those used in the '40s. "Without the protective coating, the light goes in and starts bouncing around, which makes it slightly more diffused and a bit softer without being out of focus," he explains. The cinematographer completed the overall effect by putting the negative through an additional process that extracted more of the color."

Reading this it is clear that Speilberg has decided to emulate and shoot the film to make it seem as if the footage could have appeared on that nights news, or taken first hand by combat cameramen.
For me, this desaturated stylised look almost looks and feels more realistic than the images in the previous post which is highly disconcerting. I think with how used we are to seeing imagery in black and white, this sits nicely between the two realms. It has enough colour to appear to be realistic but the desaturation grounds it in that time period.

Along with Saving Private Ryan another show that employs these concepts is Band of Brothers, which is produced again by Steven Speilberg. An image that stood out for me was one which was on the shows website.

It reminded me of a photograph which was in the same series as the other images I looked at in the previous post.

Frank Scherschel -"Paris is like a magic sword in a fairy tale— a shining power in those hands to which it rightly belongs, in other hands tinsel and lead. Whenever the City of Light changes hands, Western Civilization shifts its political balance. So it has been for seven centuries; so it was in 1940; so it was last week." — LIFE after the French capital was liberated in August 1944

While you can tell the time difference apart in each image, I find the mise-en-scene in each to be fascinating. For me, I find that the differences between each piece to be mainly technical, with the main difference being the sharpness and contrast. Almost as if the two pieces were shot at around the same time (1944), however one using a camera and techniques from old times and one using modern equipment and techniques.

Sources:
http://life.time.com/history/before-and-after-d-day-in-color/#18
http://www.hbo.com/band-of-brothers/index.html#/band-of-brothers/about/slideshow.html/eNrjcmbOYM5nLlTPz0lxzEvMqSzJTA5ITE-1S8xN1SzLTEnNh4k65+eVpFaUcDIyskknlpbkF+QkVtqWFJWmsjGyMQIAUKwXOA==
Youtube Video