While I am not a fan of horror movies or zombie flicks, I was intrigued by a showing on PBS of the original black and white version of George Romero’s macabre zombie classic, “Night of the Living Dead.” While I only watched around the last 20 or so minutes of the film, I couldn’t help but notice the many “political-social” commentaries that he made with the film in just that amount of time. Not sure if you have ever seen any of these in the film before, but having watched the film in the past, I had never noticed these before. However, here are some that I saw: the young couple who tried escaping in the truck and accidentally set it on fire with the gas (and ended up getting killed) probably represented the reckless and rebellious behavior of youth of the ‘60’s which led to their demise. The blonde woman in the film who gets dragged outside of the house and meets her demise from the zombie hordes probably represented the blonde-haired starlets of the day (like Marilyn Monroe) whose lives were consumed by the masses of their adoring fans. I think the Father who locks the black man out of the house represents the white man who had power and oppressed minorities: these white men seemed powerful and strong, but when the rubber met the road, they were cowardly when stood up against. The Mother who is killed by the zombified daughter in the basement (the creepiest and most brutal scene, which I had to turn the station when it happened) represents the youth that turned against their parents (especially the Mother, who was the keeper of the home) and joined the zombie-like wasted youth of the drug culture. The zombies themselves represented the consumer-driven masses of the time that had to “keep up with the Joneses.” I think the most tragic commentary in the movie is of the heroic black man who endures the zombie invasion only to get killed by the trigger-happy Sheriff and his yahoos who want to kill the ghouls. I found it rather sad and disturbing that the Sheriff doesn’t even question the man when he looks through the door, but has the other guy indiscriminately shoot him. Tragically, the black man who was the “hero” and kept his head on straight more than any of the other characters ends up being killed and thrown on top of the pile of bodies that is burned at the end of the film. When the film was released in 1968, I am sure these were all pretty startling social commentaries for the day. I also think some of these things are happening in our world today. One last observation. It’s amazing how movies back then could have such an impact on a viewer and relied on so much less. Being an Indie Film NOTLD didn’t have special effects like the CGI of today, but it was the creepy music and the camera angles and the use of silhouettes that that gave the film the spooky edge. It reminded me a lot of Alfred Hitchcock’s style. The scare generated was more cerebral in nature than showing the gore and stuff that movies today do--- they don’t leave much to the imagination. While I really enjoy CGI and other modern special effects, filmmakers have relied too much on them instead of building a film with solid story-telling. I don’t think this is across the board, but I think it happens more frequently than not and I think the overall quality of film making has suffered. Just an observation.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 18:26:41 +0000
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