‘Till’, ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ and ’Living’ Production Designers On Recreating A Bygone Era
deadline.comThe 1950s can inspire various forms of nostalgia. Three films this Oscar season give life to that bygone era in three very different ways.
Till gives a historically accurate representation of the period, heavily based on newsreels and photos documenting the Emmett Till case.
The decade gets a rose-colored perspective with Don’t Worry Darling, taking a more opulent and luxurious lens to the Golden Age in America, while Living takes on 1950s London, showing a more restrained aesthetic and color palette than its American counterparts. Till Based on a true story in 1955, Chinonye Chukwu’s Till follows the life of civil rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley after the brutal lynching of her teenage son Emmett Till.
While Till Mobley’s journey starts in her Chicago home, the bulk of the work for production designer Curt Beech was to recreate areas in Mississippi that were key to the Emmett Till case. “The news reels that showed the town were really valuable,” says Beech, “and there were even some of the store and everything that went down around the courthouse, the courthouse square and the courtroom.” While there was no footage from inside the courtroom, Beech had a vital source of information through co-writer and producer Keith Beauchamp.
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