Zombie movies might not be the first place one thinks to look for social commentary and reflections on the changing landscape of American culture. Yet for four decades, filmmaker George Romero has used a homegrown framework of down-and-dirty horror pictures as something of a personal journal of his times.
In his latest, "Diary of the Dead," which will screen tonight at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood before opening in limited release Friday, a group of Pennsylvania film students tries to fight its way back home against a seemingly endless army of back-from-the-dead flesh-eaters. Not surprisingly, the students shoot their adventures -- even picking up an extra camera along the way for cross-cutting -- and their story is presented as "The Death of Death," a film-within-the-film.
Rather than fall prey to the Digital Age solipsism of, say, "Cloverfield," Romero's "Diary" remains sharply perceptive about the ongoing breakdown of traditional media and the way the rise of blogging and broadband culture has, rather than bring people closer together, actually served to isolate us from one another.
More channels, Romero seems to be saying, just means more noise.
"What I like about it is that I feel they are sort of a chronicle," Romero said of the cumulative effect of his series of five "Dead" pictures: 1968's "Night of the Living Dead," 1978's "Dawn of the Dead," 1985's "Day of the Dead," 2005's "Land of the Dead" and the latest. "That's really all. I haven't felt like I was crusading or campaigning with the films. I don't feel like I'm preaching or trying to incite or anything else. I'm just trying to reflect my perception of what I see happening out there."
Reluctant auteur
Romero was raised on E.C. comic books, monster movies and early rock 'n' roll. It was with a head full of fantastic imagery and a rambunctious spirit that as a teenager in the Bronx he was arrested for throwing a flaming mannequin from the roof of a building -- a would-be special effect for an early film made with a borrowed camera. Even now at age 68, there is still something of the unprepossessing, gangly kid lookin' for kicks in his demeanor, albeit with thick-lensed glasses and a graying ponytail.
