DOTD (1979) Second Image Analysis

 

This mise-en-scene from Dawn Of The Dead (1979) is another clear example of Romero’s auteur style. This time, it reflects his obsession with consumerism in the 1970s. He always attempts to link his films to the context of the time, which in this case is the phenomenon of the opening of shopping malls. Romero really focussed on this, exaggerated it, and then made it a clear aspect of the film. This scene shows zombies aimlessly wandering around the mall; connoting us and how we function as consumers in the real world. A quote from Peter expresses this; “They’re us. That’s all.” Romero was a strong believer of responding to his audience and their behaviours, which is in conjunction with critic Janet Staiger’s “Audience Studies” who viewed audiences as the primary way to analyse films. Romero powerfully responds to his audience by almost attacking them in an attempt to get viewers in 1979 to acknowledge the fact that consumerism perhaps isn’t as wonderful as they thought.

Romero’s thematic tendency to heavily relate to historical context was seen as early as Night Of The Living Dead (NOTD, 1968), his first zombie film. Racist attitudes were very apparent in the 60’s in Southern America where NOTD was filmed; however Romero was greatly against this so created a character of which we could feel sympathy towards. The main character, Ben, was black and survived the zombies onslaught the cabin. However, he eventually gets shot by the group of selfish rednecks, implicating the point that the small minded rednecks were racist. Ben is clearly the hero of the film and we are devastated by his death. This links to what was happening in the late 60’s in the southern states of America. The African-American Civil Rights Movement was at its peak so black people were finally making a stand for themselves and fighting back against segregation and racism. Romero demonstrated how he was all for black civil rights by having a black character who survives until his untimely death at the hands of bigoted “rednecks.”