Thursday, 10 January 2013

Dawn Of The Dead (1979) Screenshot Analysis



This is a scene from Dawn Of The Dead (1979) in which the zombies enter the mall. The scene is very well lit evoking the bright lights of the mall but the fact that there are zombies wandering around still makes the scene feel eerie, especially because this shot is empty of truly “living” people.

Scott Reigner (Roger) said in the documentary The American Nightmare (1999) that the film was a ‘satire of consumerism’ and this scene suggests it. George Romero also hated consumerism so showing the zombies coming back to 'a temple of consumerism' is almost mocking it, as the mall is described as an 'important place' of the zombies past lives as humans.

These themes of consumerism is very strong in this image as it is in the rest of the film. Fran is the first person to notice that they are trapped, despite the group having access to all the material objects that they could want. Fran is a female heroin and she demands that they escape and lee to Canada, which symbolically hints on them running away from the consumerism of the USA.

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