Cinematographer Oliver Curtis on Bringing Intimacy and Opulence to “The Buccaneers”

With director Susanna White’s The Buccaneers, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s unfinished final novel set in the 1870s, Apple TV+ adds a period drama with a modern spin to its lineup. If any 19th-century chronicler of the era’s mannerisms can withstand a contemporary update, it’s Wharton, whose insight into upper-class idiosyncrasies on both sides of the pond ring true, even set to a modern soundtrack and present-day dialogue as is the case here.

The Buccaneers turns on the fallout of intercontinental marriages of convenience between five wealthy American heiresses and Englishmen long on family trees but short on cash,...