George A. Romero, 1985
Note: As I believe I've already mentioned, in July I watched a lot (read: four a day) films over about a two week-period. This is the first of what may be a series of shorter posts about those films, which I didn't take notes on and can't recall in great detail.
Sometime in I believe my sophomore year (or, as we called it at the University of Chicago, second year) of college, I was waxing on about how great Dawn of the Dead (original) was, which I'd just seen for the first time. Then my friend Dan, who's impossibly cool in a geeky but definitely pre-hipster sort of way, piped in enthusiastically "Have you seen Day of the Dead?" "No, I said," shamefacedly, schooled in the cool. "Dude, that's the best one." "Really?" I said, excited for what was still ahead of me. "Oh yeah he said," nodding and closing his eyes stolidly like some kind of sage.
Well now that I've finally gotten around to it, my memory of the first two (even though I own them) is so distant that I can't really tell you whether I agree with Dan's assessment or not; all I can say is that Day is really quite excellent. Watching it you see how Romero not just influenced, but single-handedly created the entire world of current zombie movies. The insane military troop who attempt to conscript the heroines as breed mares in 28 Days Later clearly derive from the cretinous army forces here. I actually sort of wondered if they weren't a little bit too awful, but you need it for what's coming later to be truly satisfying.
Romero is also known for really opening up the possibilities of what a horror film could be with his sensitivity to issues of race and class. Here he shows those cards again, featuring a diverse cast and treating one interracial romance and the possibility of another like they're no big deal. He also show's a really incredible awareness of gender, all the more so for the fact that he, you know, has a penis. (Actually, I don't know if that in and of itself makes this quality in him more remarkable. I mean, Max Ophuls existed in this world and thank God he did. People, regardless of the kind of heat they're packing, are either sensitive to the vicissitudes of the human condition or you're not, and the difference will definitely show in your filmmaking. Of course, people who show a true appreciation and understanding of, and empathy for the opposite sex -- it runs both ways, ladies, if you want to get it, give it -- are far thinner on the ground than they should be.)
Here, Romero gives us a lead character, Dr. Sarah Bowman, who's fully realized without trumpeting her actualization. (She's played, with a wonderful mix of warmth and steeliness, by Lori Cardille, who looks like a more serious, badass, brunette version of Blake Lively.) Romero gives her a wonderful moment. She's dating Miguel (Anthony Dileo Jr.) a private in the military outfit overseeing her scientific zombie research; the strain of his duty (which includes the dangerous, high-stress work of collecting zombie specimens for the scientists) is wearing him down, but Sarah's holding up pretty well. When they get back from an unsuccessful mission looking for survivors in Ft. Myers, Sarah suggests he take a sedative, and he refuses. We see her hesitate for a moment, then she sticks him with it. He calls her a bitch; she's wounded but recovers her resolve. Nothing he beats you over the head with, of course, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a more powerful depiction of being a strong woman or a woman with power. Lot's of female directors don't get it that right.
Romero has said the film is about how even in this small microcosm of society, breakdowns in communication leads to mayhem. The main bone of contention between the military and the scientists -- should we perform tests on the zombies in hopes of a solution or cure or just annihilate as many of the motherfuckers as we can? -- are soured by currents of racism and sexism. While the army guys are clearly loathsome, it's to Romero's credit that no one comes out looking blameless here, and watching the fights the two sides have feels as redundant and soul-crushing as the worst business meetings you've ever been to.
The film raises ethical questions -- what is the nature of humanity and consciousness? what can and cannot be done in the name of science and furthering knowledge? -- but just basically plants the germs for you to ponder and for him to use as plot devices. (In a nice twist on the bumbling professor trope, the crackpot Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) eats dinner in his blood-stained lab coat.) Romero here touches upon the idea of domesticating zombies and the notion that they might have some kind of consciousness and memory, I'd be interested to know if he fleshes these ideas out in the later films.
Also present in the narrative is the whole "rebuilding society" notion so central to any post-apocalyptic story. Of course, as I alluded to in the Modern Times post, one of the pleasures of the zombie film is that when the zombies come every (surviving) man is a king, free to scavenge whatever he likes of the old world and build a new one in his own image. We see this here in "The Ritz," the home John and Bill have set up for themselves in one of the trailers, where Sarah finds a brief respite from the stresses of her life.
The alcoholic crops up again here, in the guise of Jarlath Conroy's Bill McDermott. It's not a huge plot point or particularly interesting, I wonder why Romero even bothered. One of the problems I have with cultural depictions of alcoholism is that the focus is always on the addiction and never on the recovery, getting sober always reduced (as I believe I pointed out in a snipe at Crazy Heart somewhere) to the same two or three scenes. I think the idea is that active addiction = sexy dangerous stuff to watch whereas sobriety = boring prudery. In fact, the tail end of active alcoholism can often be crushingly boring; it's a kind of numbing, desperate, bleak boredom that Hollywood has never quite been able to capture; if it did, it'd really be on to something. (How do you depict boredom without making it too boring for the audience? This seems to be the question David Foster Wallace was grappling with when he died.)
I'm sorry; I must sound tedious on this issue. But what the movie made me think about was how interesting it would be to follow a recovering alcoholic in the wake of a zombie infestation. Would you say "fuck it, the world's gonna end anyway" and drink? Or would you try to stay sober? How would you stay sober? What if your sponsor became a zombie?
Anyway, back to Romero: we talk about the topics and undercurrents that elevate his films above typical grindhouse fare. And we should recognize Romero's accomplishments in this arena. But we shouldn't forget his directive to entertain: how does he fare in delivering those grindhouse thrills? In the context of this film, I would say quite well. Romero proves quite effective at choreographing and orchestrating gore; blocks are set up, sequences build. In the last act of Day, all this occurs on an operatic level. And the effects have a lurid, pulpy quality that, even though technology has improved, still chills you 25 years later.
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