Someone linked to a Julia Child segment in another thread. I noticed shadows in one shot that would be unacceptable today. That reminded me of older films (specifically, Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds) that had harsh shadows. Probably nobody noticed back then. Filmmaking techniques, and that includes lighting, have advanced steadily. What was normal in the past would not be acceptable today.
If the story, direction, and acting are compelling, do you care if there are shadows? Or if you see shadows (and I’m talking about the actors, not boom shadows and such), do you think that the DP should have gone to the extra effort to eliminate them?
I’m not talking about ‘intentional’ shadows. For example, sets will often be lit with a ‘gobo’ or ‘cookie’ between the light and the scene specifically to cast shadows. Hitchcock surely used this technique. It’s the ‘incidental’ shadows I’m talking about; the hard-edged shadows cast by an actor onto a surface from the key light. I don’t see any compositional purpose to these shadows, but they do broadcast ‘Hey, there’s a 5k light pointing right here!’