Vanity Fair’s August Recreates The 30s Films With Young Actors

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I sometimes think I’m more of a fashion cinephile. Not the kind who loves movies about/around/with fashion but fashion like a movie. Take for instance photography: fashion photography revolutionizes my aesthetics only if the pictures tell a story. A good one.

That’s why I love (anything-) Annie Leibovitz. She’s like a photo-story teller to me. I could never resist the story of Annie lenses.

So Vanity Fair’s pictorials really get to me. Because they tell stories. Like this “Ain’t We Got Style” from Vanity Fair August 2009 where young artist impersonate legends from the thirties films! (the story continues right after the jump with more pictures and videos!)

Photographed by Art Streiber, Mark Selinger, Michael Roberts and Norman Jean Roy, the August portfolio looks magical and doesn’t fail to impress me. The work that’s being put into a photo session like that is unbelievable: an entire industry for just few pages of printed paper in a monthly magazine…

James Marsden and Rose Byrne channeling Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night, Frank Capra, 1934), Mila Kunis as Joan Crawford (Letty Lynton, 1932), Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried as William Powell and Carole Lombard (My Man Godfrey, 1936), Josh Duhamel and Elle Fannig as Ryan and Tatul O’Neal (Paper Moon, 1973), Kat Dennings, Anton Yelchin, Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Dancy (They Shoot Horses Don’t They? 1969) and so many more play the tune of the Great Depression for an artistic comparison with the current “depression”.

Would that add some seriousness to the playful spirit in which the photos were supposed to be taken? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. It’s not uncommon for upcoming actors to act as past legends. It’s something reassuring in recreating a stated success, something that gives one aspirant a clear perspective of the peak. Is it safe to recreate the Great Depression? Don’t really know, but I surely can’t take it seriously if there’s John Krasinski in it! There’s gotta be a prank somewhere… (via 1, 2)