my zombie paper/english final. what do you think so far?
1968 was the year that defined a decade. If rebellion was a characteristic of the times, major unrest and political protest took place in Paris, Prague, New York, Chicago, Memphis, and London. If political assassination defined the era, Martin Luther King died in April, Bobby Kennedy in June. If artistic revolution had any impact, artist's like Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko were developing some of the most important expressionistic work of our century. One thing that is commonly overlooked in reminiscing 1968 is the way film reflected the cultural standstill. American directors had begun to treat key modernist themes of alienation, solitude, and social breakdown with films such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and most importantly, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
The release of Night of the Living Dead marked the rebirth of the horror genre. Set in rural Pennsylvania, the movie follows a group of disparate survivors stranded in a farmhouse after taking shelter from the unexplained attack of thousands of flesh-eating, animated dead bodies. With it's amateur actors, violently explicit content and low-budget, black and white film, it's screenings produced documentary like effects which made audiences feel like witnesses to a genuine crisis. The unstoppable force of a mass of zombies echoes images of the French student riots of 1968, while the piles of dead bodies at the end of the film reflect the massacre at My Lai and the casualties from the Vietnam War.
Most frightening was the characters' inability to defend themselves. The characters constantly argue, unable to agree on a safe plan. The most rational, intelligent, and oddly enough disputed of the group was a Black protagonist by the name of Ben. Interestingly, Ben resembles box-office favorite and the '60s hero of black pro-activity, actor Sidney Poitier. Though he is the most resourceful, long lasting of his group, Ben is shot after he is found sleeping by the authorities - they mistake him for a zombie. With the scene following Ben's death showing his lifeless body hanging from a tree, being whipped (you could even say lynched) by the redneck, gun toting survivors, it is hard not to see Ben's character as Romero's tribute to the struggle for civil rights.
The character of Barbara, a beautiful, vulnerable and extremely frightened young lady, is also a social commentary. Her resemblance to such successful characters as the lost Marion Crane from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic Psycho and the dazed, blonde Candice Hilligoss from Herk Harvey's 1962 film Carnival of Souls was likely purposeful.
Romero followed Night of the Living Dead with two sequels: Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead............
im not done with it yet! 3 more pages to go!!!
1968 was the year that defined a decade. If rebellion was a characteristic of the times, major unrest and political protest took place in Paris, Prague, New York, Chicago, Memphis, and London. If political assassination defined the era, Martin Luther King died in April, Bobby Kennedy in June. If artistic revolution had any impact, artist's like Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko were developing some of the most important expressionistic work of our century. One thing that is commonly overlooked in reminiscing 1968 is the way film reflected the cultural standstill. American directors had begun to treat key modernist themes of alienation, solitude, and social breakdown with films such as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and most importantly, George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.
The release of Night of the Living Dead marked the rebirth of the horror genre. Set in rural Pennsylvania, the movie follows a group of disparate survivors stranded in a farmhouse after taking shelter from the unexplained attack of thousands of flesh-eating, animated dead bodies. With it's amateur actors, violently explicit content and low-budget, black and white film, it's screenings produced documentary like effects which made audiences feel like witnesses to a genuine crisis. The unstoppable force of a mass of zombies echoes images of the French student riots of 1968, while the piles of dead bodies at the end of the film reflect the massacre at My Lai and the casualties from the Vietnam War.
Most frightening was the characters' inability to defend themselves. The characters constantly argue, unable to agree on a safe plan. The most rational, intelligent, and oddly enough disputed of the group was a Black protagonist by the name of Ben. Interestingly, Ben resembles box-office favorite and the '60s hero of black pro-activity, actor Sidney Poitier. Though he is the most resourceful, long lasting of his group, Ben is shot after he is found sleeping by the authorities - they mistake him for a zombie. With the scene following Ben's death showing his lifeless body hanging from a tree, being whipped (you could even say lynched) by the redneck, gun toting survivors, it is hard not to see Ben's character as Romero's tribute to the struggle for civil rights.
The character of Barbara, a beautiful, vulnerable and extremely frightened young lady, is also a social commentary. Her resemblance to such successful characters as the lost Marion Crane from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic Psycho and the dazed, blonde Candice Hilligoss from Herk Harvey's 1962 film Carnival of Souls was likely purposeful.
Romero followed Night of the Living Dead with two sequels: Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead............
im not done with it yet! 3 more pages to go!!!
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
bests to you
I have oftemn wondered how muich of whatis in that film is ment ot be there and howm uch of it just comes out in our own minds... The very basic and archtypical characters allow us to easily identify with them and see their motivations and feelings plainly becaus eit is simple to project our own impresisons of these arcthypes onot the characters.
for me the real question has been are the impressions and messages I get from this film what Romero was trying to say or is it my own sterotypes, prejudce and judgement creating amessage?