George A. Romero has made a killing by bringing back the dead, but he’s far from macabre in real life.
Spoke to the man behind “Night of the Living Dead” a few months back in connection with his latest ode to zombies - “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead.”
Romero couldn’t have been more pleasant - or more an avuncular relic of the ’60s. He ended plenty of sentences with “man,” and the politics throughout his movies reveals a Woodstock-style ideology.
“Diary of the Dead,” recently released on DVD, takes a “Blair Witch/Cloverfield” approach to the zombie genre. Bless Romero for staying so up to date on our YouTube/Internet culture, but the director’s usual social commentary is ladled on far too thick.
(Photo: In “George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead,” we relive the first day the dead started coming back to life)
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
James Frazier 08.10.08 at 4:42 am
I liked “Diary of the Dead” though I essientially agree with your review. I’d tell people it was the best failure I’d ever seen. Amitious, not quite succeeding, but nonetheless very entertaining and with some sweet moments (”I’m Samuel Hi”).
You get to interview a lot of these people and then review their work. Does liking whoever you’re talking to make it harder to bash their stuff later on?
cftoto 08.10.08 at 4:53 am
Good question, James. I’ve been fortunate in that I often like the projects associated with the actors I speak with. Not so much here. I did feel bad for blasting the movie … Romero was clearly trying for something new, and he was just so much fun to chat with. One of my favorite chats in years. Still, you gotta call ‘em like you see ‘em.
The worst time I had was when I attended a junket (many critics carpet bomb the stars of a film at one time) for “Driven” Star Sylvester Stallone was so smart and interesting, but he was defending/discussing a truly horrible film …
jic 08.11.08 at 4:02 am
“the politics throughout his movies reveals a Woodstock-style ideology.”
Really? The main feeling I got from them was misanthropy. Or are we talking about the difference between intentions and outcomes here?
cftoto 08.11.08 at 4:10 am
jic - Taken as a whole, Romero’s films lean consistently left. But you’re right … in his last two Dead features he’s shown genuine affection for the dead — and contempt for humanity. I can see the latter if you’re a glass is half empty sort, but his bond with flesh-eating zombies is bizarre.
Then again, no one would know his name without those undead ghouls.
jic 08.11.08 at 4:48 am
I have no doubt that his contempt for humanity comes from a left-wing perspective (there are plenty of conservative misanthropes, but they express it differently), but I saw that contempt as the main theme of both *Dawn* and *Day* (I haven’t actually seen *Night*). In the world Romero created, if you are gentle and caring, you suck because you aren’t prepared to do what’s necessary. If you organize with your friends and neighbours to arm yourself and start hunting down the zombies, you suck because you have lost your humanity. If you are an anarchist, you suck because you are dangerous and irresponsible, but if you are in the military or police, you suck because you are a fascist…
Romero does seem to concede that black men with a military/police background, women who can handle themselves in a fight, and old drunks suck a bit less, but he still seems to think that they suck.
Now, in *Land* he made the ghouls almost the good guys, but he added an overtly Marxist class warfare element that required him to tone down the misanthropy a little. It was still there, only he now seems to think that the rich suck more than the poor.