Romero Rétrospective 13 – 30 Décembre
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"They're Us": Representations of Women in George Romero's 'Living
"They’re Us": Representations of Women in George Romero’s ‘Living Dead’ Series Stephen Harper In the opening scene of George Romero’s 1978 film Martin, a teenage sexual psychopath kills and drinks the blood of a young woman in her sleeper train compartment during a struggle that is protracted, messy and far from one-sided. Although women are often victims in Romero’s films, they are by no means passive ones. Indeed, Romero is seldom in danger of objectivising or pornographising his female characters; on the contrary, Romero’s women are typically resourceful and autonomous. This paper analyses some of Romero’s representations of women, with particular reference to the four ‘living dead’ films which Romero made over a period of more than thirty years. These are Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1979), Day of the Dead (1985) and the 1990 remake of Night. [1] All of these films feature a group of human survivors in an America overrun by zombies. The survivors of Night hole up in a house; in Dawn the sanctuary is a shopping mall; while in Day, the darkest of the films, it is an underground military installation. Unsurprisingly, these savage and apocalyptic zombie films contain some of Romero’s most striking representations of active and even aggressive women. This in itself hints at a feminist approach. While Hollywood films typically eroticize and naturalise male violence and emphasise female passivity, Romero uses his zombies to undermine such assumptions. Romero’s female zombies are not only undead but virtually ungendered; for instance, they are responsible for as many acts of violence as their male counterparts. -
ABSTRACT Title of Document: COMMUNICATING FEAR in FILM
ABSTRACT Title of Document: COMMUNICATING FEAR IN FILM MUSIC: A SOCIOPHOBIC ANALYSIS OF ZOMBIE FILM SOUNDTRACKS Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez Master of Arts, 2014 Directed By: Dr. Patrick Warfield, Musicology The horror film soundtrack is a complex web of narratological, ethnographic, and semiological factors all related to the social tensions intimated by a film. This study examines four major periods in the zombie’s film career—the Voodoo zombie of the 1930s and 1940s, the invasion narratives of the late 1960s, the post-apocalyptic survivalist fantasies of the 1970s and 1980s, and the modern post-9/11 zombie—to track how certain musical sounds and styles are indexed with the content of zombie films. Two main musical threads link the individual films’ characterization of the zombie and the setting: Othering via different types of musical exoticism, and the use of sonic excess to pronounce sociophobic themes. COMMUNICATING FEAR IN FILM MUSIC: A SOCIOPHOBIC ANALYSIS OF ZOMBIE FILM SOUNDTRACKS by Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2014 Advisory Committee: Professor Patrick Warfield, Chair Professor Richard King Professor John Lawrence Witzleben ©Copyright by Pedro Gonzalez-Fernandez 2014 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS II INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Introduction 1 Why Zombies? 2 Zombie Taxonomy 6 Literature Review 8 Film Music Scholarship 8 Horror Film Music Scholarship -
Thematic Connections Between Western and Zombie Fiction
Hang 'Em High and Bury 'Em Deep: Thematic Connections between Western and Zombie Fiction MICHAEL NGUYEN Produced in Melissa Ringfield’s Spring 2012 ENC1102 Zombies first shambled onto the scene with the release of Night of the Living Dead, a low- budget Romero film about a group of people attempting to survive mysterious flesh-eating husks; from this archetypical work, Night ushered in an era of the zombie, which continues to expand into more mediums and works to this day. Romero's own Living Dead franchise saw a revival as recently as 2004, more than doubling its filmography by the release of 2009's Survival of the Dead. As a testament to the pervasiveness of the genre, Max Brooks' zombie preparedness satire The Zombie Survival Guide alone has spawned the graphic novel The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks and the spinoff novel World War Z, the latter of which has led to a film adaptation. There have been numerous articles that capitalize on the popularity of zombies in order to use them as a nuanced metaphor; for example, the graduate thesis Zombies at Work: The Undead Face of Organizational Subjectivity used the post-colonial Haitian zombie mythos as the backdrop of its sociological analysis of the workplace. However, few, if any, have attempted to define the zombie-fiction genre in terms of its own conceptual prototype: the Western. While most would prefer to interpret zombie fiction from its horror/supernatural fiction roots, I believe that by viewing zombie fiction through the analytical lens of the Western, zombie works can be more holistically described, such that a series like The Walking Dead might not only be described as a “show about zombies,” but also as a show that is distinctly American dealing with distinctly American cultural artifacts. -
Film Reviews.6
Page 75 FILM REVIEWS Black Swan (Dir. Darren Aronofsky) U SA 2010 20th Century Fox International “Done to death, I know. But not like this.” When Vincent Cassel’s leery ballet school director, Thomas Leroy, introduces his cast to the new season’s programme featuring ‘Swan Lake’, he describes how he will reinvent the classic ballet by stripping it down and making it visceral. To do this, he needs a new lead dancer, a woman capable of embodying the characters of both the innocent white swan and the seductive black swan. Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan takes us on a journey from rehearsal to the stage as a delicate young woman, Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), prepares for the role and undergoes a tragic transformation. Aronofsky’s latest film doesn’t so much delve into the world of ballet as use it as a pretty setting for his psychological tale of artistic obsession. Nina’s life consists of dancing and not much else. She appears to have no interests outside ballet and lives at home with her mother (Barbara Hershey as a truly terrifying composite of stage mother and classic horror psycho mother), whose grip on her daughter is far tighter than Nina’s own grip on reality. Already unpopular with the other dancers, and with suspicion surrounding her sudden elevation to prima ballerina, the introduction of a new dancer to the company (Mila Kunis) quite literally throws Nina off balance and forces the viewer to reel with her for the rest of the film as she tries unsuccessfully to regain her footing. -
"Those Things" and "You People" : Issues Of
d “THOSE THINGS” AND “YOU PEOPLE” Issues of Racism in Zombie Cinema Kyle Allkins Judith Halberstam claims that “it would be very difficult in a horror film to show and punish racism simultaneously,” but this essay contends that zombie films show racism through their representation of African American characters and the ways zombies function as racial “others” who exemplify the nonnormative and inhuman (Skin Shows 4). Zombie films also link the colonized racial “other” to the colonized white female in interesting ways. The extermination of zombies in cinema represents racism, racial profiling, racial violence, and racial selfhatred and links racism with sexism. At times, zombie cin ema may also punish the culturally normative “we or us” for seeking violence against the racialized or feminized “them.” Cinematic zombies evoke fear in part because zombies can be anyone. Spouse, sibling, coworker, friend, priest, cop, Mayor, President, girl next door—anyone in a zombie film can be altered and “turned” in no time at all. Those that haven’t been turned are slowly being outnumbered, becoming the mi nority, becoming nonnormative themselves. Audiences have eagerly consumed films about zombies since their first appear ance in White Zombie, a 1932 horror film starring Bela Legosi. 112 Subsequent zombie films such as Jacques Tourneur’s 1943 I Walked with A Zombie, George A. Romero’s 1968 cult classic Night of the Living Dead, and even Wes Craven’s 1988 The Serpent and the Rainbow, continued to shape the genre by adding unique elements. The website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ List_of_zombie_films lists the dozens of zombie films made in America and abroad over the last eight decades and attests to the genre’s continuing popularity. -
Taylor Doctoralthesis Complete
21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance By Joanne Marie Taylor A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Peter Glazer, Chair Professor Brandi Wilkins Catanese Professor Kristen Whissel Fall 2011 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance © 2011 by Joanne Marie Taylor Abstract 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance by Joanne Marie Taylor Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and a Designated Emphasis in Film Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Peter Glazer, Chair This project began with a desire to define and articulate what I have termed cinematic performance, which itself emerged from an examination of how liveness, as a privileged performance studies concept, functions in the 21st century. Given the relative youth of the discipline, performance studies has remained steadfast in delimiting its objects as those that are live—shared air performance—and not bound by textuality; only recently has the discipline considered the mediated, but still solely within the circumscription of shared air performance. The cinema, as cultural object, permeates our lives—it is pervasive and ubiquitous—it sets the bar for quality acting, and shapes our expectations and ideologies. The cinema, and the cinematic text, is a complex performance whose individual components combine to produce a sum greater than the total of its parts. The cinema itself is a performance—not just the acting—participating in a cultural dialogue, continually reshaping and challenging notions of liveness, made more urgent with the ever-increasing use of digital technologies that seem to further segregate what is generally considered real performance from the final, constructed cinematic text. -
Canonical Monstrosity, the Romero Zombie, and the Political Subject
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 10-2014 Civilization of the Living Dead: Canonical Monstrosity, the Romero Zombie, and the Political Subject Nicholas Walter Robbins Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/468 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] CIVILIZATION OF THE LIVING DEAD: CANONICAL MONSTROSITY, THE ROMERO ZOMBIE, AND THE POLITICAL SUBJECT by NICHOLAS W. ROBBINS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 ii © 2014 NICHOLAS W. ROBBINS All Right Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Political Science in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Corey Robin _______________ ________________________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Alyson Cole _______________ ________________________________________ Date Excecutive Officer Corey Robin Alyson Cole Joe Rollins Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract CIVILIZATION OF THE LIVING DEAD: CANONICAL MONSTROSITY, THE ROMERO ZOMBIE, AND THE POLITICAL SUBJECT by Nicholas W. Robbins Advisor: Professor Corey Robin This dissertation analyzes the canonical monsters of Western political theory, including Plato’s wolf-man, Hobbes’s Leviathan and Tocqueville’s mechanical mass. It argues that monster theorists – including horror film director George A. -
Why Zombies Matter: the Undead As Critical Posthumanist
Why Zombies Matter: The Undead as Critical Posthumanist Dale Knickerbocker studies Key words: Zombie, posthuman, technological singularity, humanism, antihumanism. Klíčová slova: Zombie, posthumánní, technologická singularita, humanismus, antihumanismus. Abstract: This paper poses two questions: why have we brought back the living dead so many times in so many different forms, and what is the cultural significance of its most recent resuscitation? With respect to the latter query, I propose three ideas: first, that the zombie has become the biotechnological equivalent of the science-fictional cyborg, as they both express the same anxieties and thus fulfill a similar cultural function. Second, as humans converted into another species, they are posthuman, and their genocidal war on humanity is homologous to the science-fictional Termi- nators and apocalyptic cyborgs and artificial intelligences. In the same way, the heralded “zombie apocalypse” is a fictional historical evolutionary turning point homologous to John Von Neumann‘s and Vernor Vinge‘s “technological singularity.” Third, the change in rationalization of zombification from the supernatural to the scientific in the 1960s signified a reaction against instrumental reason, technoscience, modernity, and the values of Humanism. This is evident in recent iterations in which the zombie is the result of a plague cause by genetic experimentation. I conclude that this millennial zombie is the poster child for an antihumanist, critical posthumanism. Finally, in response to the first query, -
White Zombie, I Walked with a Zombie, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Victor Halperin, Georges A
Resisting Bodies: Power Crisis / Meaning Crisis in the Zombie Film from 1932 to Today David Roche To cite this version: David Roche. Resisting Bodies: Power Crisis / Meaning Crisis in the Zombie Film from 1932 to Today. Textes & Contextes, Université de Bourgogne, Centre Interlangues TIL, 2011, Discours autoritaires et résistances aux XXe et XXIe siècles, https://preo.u- bourgogne.fr/textesetcontextes/index.php?id=327. halshs-00682096 HAL Id: halshs-00682096 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00682096 Submitted on 23 Mar 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Resisting Bodies: Power Crisis / Meaning Crisis in the Zombie Film from 1932 to Today David Roche Maître de conférences, Centre Interlangues Texte, Image, Langage (EA 4182), Université de Bourgogne, 2 boulevard Gabriel, 21000 Dijon, mudrock [at] neuf.fr Critics have repeatedly focused on the political subtexts of the living dead films of George A. Romero, revealing, notably, how they reflect specific social concerns. In order to determine what makes the zombie movie and the figure of the zombie so productive of political readings, this article examines, first, the classic zombie movies influenced by voodoo lore, then Romero’s initial living dead trilogy (1968-1985), and finally some of the most successful films released in the 2000s. -
Land of the Dead
Journal of Religion & Film Volume 9 Issue 2 October 2005 Article 10 October 2005 Land of the Dead Mario DeGiglio-Bellemare University of Toronto, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf Recommended Citation DeGiglio-Bellemare, Mario (2005) "Land of the Dead," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 9 : Iss. 2 , Article 10. Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol9/iss2/10 This Film Review is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Religion & Film by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Land of the Dead Abstract This is a review of Land of the Dead (2005). This film er view is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol9/iss2/10 DeGiglio-Bellemare: Land of the Dead George A. Romero is well known to horror genre enthusiasts as the man who invented the contemporary cinematic zombie myth (divorced from its Haitian roots). The cannibalistic urge of the zombie, its slow-moving pace, and the methods of dispensing with one of them by putting a bullet through its head, or by removing its head altogether, were all invented by Romero when he made the genre-bending cult favorite Night of the Living Dead. However, Romero is also known for his very astute and critical appraisals of the political landscape of the U.S.A. In Romero's world, the zombie is much more than a living dead creature seeking warm intestines to snack on; the zombie is a force for social transformation. -
Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance
UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9hq1z1t7 Author Taylor, Joanne Marie Publication Date 2011 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance By Joanne Marie Taylor A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Film Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Peter Glazer, Chair Professor Brandi Wilkins Catanese Professor Kristen Whissel Fall 2011 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance © 2011 by Joanne Marie Taylor Abstract 21st Century Zombies: New Media, Cinema, and Performance by Joanne Marie Taylor Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and a Designated Emphasis in Film Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Peter Glazer, Chair This project began with a desire to define and articulate what I have termed cinematic performance, which itself emerged from an examination of how liveness, as a privileged performance studies concept, functions in the 21st century. Given the relative youth of the discipline, performance studies has remained steadfast in delimiting its objects as those that are live—shared air performance—and not bound by textuality; only recently has the discipline considered the mediated, but still solely within the circumscription of shared air performance. The cinema, as cultural object, permeates our lives—it is pervasive and ubiquitous—it sets the bar for quality acting, and shapes our expectations and ideologies. -
Horrorhound 33(C2c)(2012)(Re Em DCP)
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