Friday, 19 December 2014

Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis

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This image is from the ending credits of Dawn of the Dead when the zombies are left wandering through the mall. This is another high angle shot which focuses on two levels of the mall and suggests that Romero wants us to think about how vast these places are.

I think in this scene, Romero is using the zombies as a metaphor for how he feels about consumerism; that people don’t even think about what they’re doing anymore because it’s just instinct. This is also discussed in the script of the film; Stephen asks why the zombies keep coming to the mall to which Peter replies “Memory? Instinct? This was an important place in their lives.” Romero wanted the audience to take away a subliminal message from the film; that there are more important things going on than shopping... and that people shouldn't become consumerist "zombies."

In 1979 when this film was released, this message about consumerism would have been really powerful to the audience because the malls were still a new phenomenon and people were still wary of them. Janet Staiger wrote about the importance of understanding context in her book "Understanding Films", for example the remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004 didn't pursue the criticism of the malls as shown in the original, because for the audience it wouldn't have had any relevance as they're completely used to the malls.









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