``Night of the Living Dead'' How the ``modern Dawn of the Dead'' that took the movie world by storm was born

Criticism of society that Dawn of the Dead have

``Night of the Living Dead'' was a black-and-white independent film with a high level of brutality, so it was mainly released at late-night theaters and drive-in theaters, but it became a huge hit. It became a legendary cult film (it was not released theatrically in Japan). As time passes, Romero realizes new possibilities for Dawn of the Dead.

In 1968, the Vietnam War was in progress. Furthermore, the civil rights movement was in full swing in the United States, where persecuted minorities were trying to win basic human rights (Romero was on his way to New York with the finished film when he heard the news of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. ). Meanwhile, ``Night of the Living Dead'' was released and was enthusiastically received by some as a revolutionary work that used the unprecedented tool of ``Dawn of the Dead'' to express its opposition to society. I was welcomed.

One of the main reasons for this was that Duane Jones, who played the lead role, was black. He commands a group of white men barricaded in a house and beats up a white man who tried to betray him. In 1968, depicting blacks and whites in this way was shocking, and many viewers saw it as a metaphor for the civil rights movement. (Romero says there was no political intention behind casting Jones, who is black, as the lead role, and that it was a coincidence.)

Jean-Luc Godard says:

"The only condition for a good movie to be a hit is for it to be misunderstood."

Coincidentally, public opinion is based on misconceptions, but Romero has found the Dawn of the Dead character to be quite effective in critiquing society. And he will intentionally put this into practice in the subsequent Dawn of the Dead Saga.

`` Dawn of the Dead '' (1978) satirizes the emptiness of consumer society through the protagonists holed up in a shopping mall, and `` Prey of the Dead '' (1985) pokes fun at the Reagan administration, which coercively cuts down the weak through its neoliberal policies. did. ` `Land of the Dead '' (2005), which focuses on the theme of social inequality, depicts Dawn of the Dead evolving into a group of people with a will, and cast a black actor as the Dawn of the Dead leader, Big Daddy. This can also be interpreted as an ironic development, as Jones, who played the leader of humans in "Night of the Living Dead," will now command the Dawn of the Dead, linking the worlds of the work after 40 years. can.

Fifty years after ``Night of the Living Dead'', the ``Dawn of the Dead'' created by Romero has continued to spread in movies and dramas, and has now become so established that it can be called a genre. After all, even Jim Jarmusch ended up filming the Dawn of the Dead movie ` `The Dead Don't Die '' (2019)...

` `Night of the Living Dead' ' can be said to be the ground zero of such a `` Dawn of the Dead phenomenon'', but unfortunately, due to the lack of proper copyright protection procedures when it was released, it became public domain, and Romero had no access to it. There are no rights to the film, and it has been shown and made into software without permission many times. I feel really bad for Romero and the producers, but for better or worse, ``Night'' caused a pandemic in the world film industry like a virus, and contributed to the popularization of `` Dawn of the Dead'' today. You could say that. It is also interesting to see this as an ironic development that runs through Romero's works.

Reference: " Dawn of the Dead Saga: George A. Romero's Apocalypse " (Yukichi Nohara/ABC Publishing)

“ Dawn of the Dead Movie Magazine ” (edited by Miwa Ito/Yosensha)

Text: Tetsuya Inagaki

TV director. My personal goal is to realize a documentary project that depicts the obsessions of manga and movie creators. Programs he has directed in the past include ``The Godfather : The Man Who Revolutionized Manga'' (WOWOW), ``Takeshi's Birth: Master and Asakusa'' (NHK), ``Master and Disciple Story: The Encounter That Changed My Life'' [Masahiro Tanaka x Katsuya Nomura ] (NHK BS Premium).

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"Night of the Living Dead"

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