George A. Romero

[DarkImbecile]

George Romero (1940-2017)



The very fact that you thought of it means that, somewhere in your mind, it's believable to you. All you have to do is convince your audience that it's possible.

Filmography

Director [*=screenwriter][/u]
Night of the Living Dead* (1968)
There's Always Vanilla (1971)
Season of the Witch* (1972)
The Crazies* (1973)
O.J. Simpson: Juice on the Loose (1974)
Martin* (1977)
Dawn of the Dead* (1978)
Knightriders* (1981)
Creepshow (1982)
Day of the Dead* (1985)
Monkey Shines* (1988)
Two Evil Eyes* (1990)
The Dark Half* (1993)
Bruiser* (2000)
Land of the Dead* (2005)
Diary of the Dead* (2007)
Survival of the Dead* (2009)

Screenwriter Only
Creepshow 2 (1987)
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Books
The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: The Films of George A. Romero by Paul R. Gagne (1987)
The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead by Tony Williams (2003)
George A. Romero: Interviews by Tony Williams (2011)
The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead by Tony Williams (2015)
George A. Romero: On Screen by Chris Wade (2016)

Web Resources
1972 interview with Alex Ben Block, Filmmakers Newsletter Magazine
1979 interview with Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
2005 interview with Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
2007 interview with Mariana McConnell, CinemaBlend
2008 interview with Noel Murray, The AV Club
2010 interview with Joseph Flaherty, Wired
2013 interview with Matt Thrift, Little White Lies
2013 interview with Martyn Conterio, Starburst
2014 interview with James Blackford, Sight & Sound
2019 Hillary Weston interview with Jim Jarmusch on George A. Romero, Criterion.com

Forum Discussions
George A. Romero (1940-2017)
909 Night of the Living Dead
George A. Romero: Between Night and Dawn
Diary of the Dead (George Romero, 2007)
Survival of the Dead (George A. Romero, 2009)
Creepshow 2

[Awesome Welles]

For anyone interested Romero's Night, Dawn and Day will show as part of a Halloween all-nighter in London's Screen on the Green.

[MB]

Romero actually has a new movie coming up, already filming it. It’s some sort of ‘Island of the Dead’. I enjoyed Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. Both films had touches of greatness, but also some nasty downsides too, so I‘m not so excited about a new one anymore. Although this time the project seems to be somewhere “in the middle”, with artistic integrity that he didn’t completely have in Land and a bigger budget than in Diary. Diary may have succeeded in somewhat making it look like it was put together by film students, but I‘m not sure if that‘s such a good thing at all, making something intentionally worse. Also the idea of a 60-year-old man (of the hippie generation) getting inside the head of today’s youth is somewhat absurd.

But anyhow, I’m looking forward seeing the documentary Dead On. It was screened in Melbourne International Film Festival and the response was quite positive, although there’s nothing really new in it.

[GaryC]

Also the idea of a 60-year-old man (of the hippie generation) getting inside the head of today’s youth is somewhat absurd.

I don't agree. Some of the most successful writers for children and teenagers are in their fifties and sixties - Melvin Burgess and Jacqueline Wilson (respectively) come to mind.

Returning to filmmakers, Eric Rohmer didn't do too badly making films about young people until well into his seventies.

I did like Diary of the Dead a lot - his best film for quite some time. The low budget was inherent in the film's premise, so that didn't hurt it.

[MB]

Also the idea of a 60-year-old man (of the hippie generation) getting inside the head of today’s youth is somewhat absurd.

I don't agree. Some of the most successful writers for children and teenagers are in their fifties and sixties - Melvin Burgess and Jacqueline Wilson (respectively) come to mind.

Returning to filmmakers, Eric Rohmer didn't do too badly making films about young people until well into his seventies.

Maybe I generalised that a little. Everybody has been young sometime and all that, but what I mean is, that I don’t believe Romero did too much research on today’s youth (Like Nicholas Ray hanged around with James Dean when they prepared to shoot Rebel Without a Cause), and the movie really gave the feel that this was a view from somebody‘s couch, not from the street. In some instances the situations in Diary appear somewhat stiff and these young people don’t behave very naturally. Bad acting? Well, maybe that’s the issue too, but this is the feeling I got from the movie.

I'm nobody to say how George should be directing his movies, but I felt that there wasn‘t too much room for improvisation (which I‘d like to see in this kind of a movie, although for that one has to be a good actor too) and also the dialogue could have used some helping hand to make it sound like it would come out of these people‘s mouths. Here‘s the real issue though, Romero really pushed the limits with this kind of style. Where Cloverfield and Blair Witch tried to document reality, Diary went to document this movie world with clearly movie dialogue and some way over the top stuff. Sort of left me puzzled, Romero tried to pull you in to these events with this cinema verite style, but he also pushed you away with all that unbelievable stuff.

The social commentary is something that I found to be quite interesting. It is true that the form of internet that’s out there divides people more into tribes than really connects them together. Of course not saying that the corporate control is too much better than anarchy, a tough question. I just hoped the film had been equally good compared to it’s argument.

[antnield]

From the BFI's YouTube channel: Ask a Filmmaker - George A. Romero answers your questions.

[LavaLamp]

Romero's Martin (1978) is one of the most underrated films of the 1970's. I'm not sure if I can define it as an actual horror flick, but it would definitely fit into that general category. Liked the creepy unease that permeated the whole movie, as well as the urban scenes of 1970's Pittsburgh.

Spoiler

The revelation that Martin wasn't actually a vampire, but was driven to think he was by a disturbed/crazy member of his family was quite bizzare & horrific.

Also, I enjoyed both Land of the Dead & Diary of the Dead. There are so many zombie movies & TV shows these days that it's hard to put any kind of original "spin" on the genre, but I think these films succeeded in being interesting. A group of wealthy people living in a high-rise while all of the less fortunate on the ground suffered a post-apocalyptic nightmare is not new in film/fiction, but I think it worked well in LOTD. And, I didn't mind the hand-held camera aspect in Diary, since I don't think using that in films has been overused (yet)...

[hearthesilence]

I was going to see Dawn of the Dead at MoMI but I see it's listed as a "digital projection" (not even a DCP, which they would indicate as such if it were). Didn't Koch release a 4k restoration of the European cut last year? Wondering if it is due to screen here in the U.S. sometime in the near future.

EDIT: Just did some research - it appears that the definitive cut of this film (the US theatrical cut) has never had an adequate BD release, which is astounding considering that there have been quite a few. Problems abound in all of them.

[lacritfan]

George A. Romero posthumously received Hollywood Star last week

[DarkImbecile]

Romero’s widow references dozens of unproduced scripts and a little-seen, soon-to-be-restored 1973 film by her late husband

[dwk]

Daniel Kraus watched the unreleased Romero film, The Amusement Park, earlier today and tweeted a bit about it

[solaris72]

The George A. Romero Foundation is accepting donations to restore The Amusement Park. They do seem to be 501c3 for what it's worth.

[dwk]

Shudder has acquired the rights to The Amusement Park

[dwk]

The Auction for the long version of Martin has started and is currently at $20,000.

[Computer Raheem]

The Auction for the long version of Martin has started and is currently at $20,000.

So... anyone wanna start a fund for this? I'll chip in!

Jokes aside, I'm hoping that whoever ends up in possession of this print is willing to make it public, either through a home video release (ideally with the forever-delayed Second Sight release) or by dumping it onto the Internet Archive or backchannels. To get so close to watching Romero's original vision and then have it hidden away would be annoying.

Then again, I still need to watch Martin, so... what do I know?

[therewillbeblus]

The original is insanely exceptional (and exceptionally insane) so it’s an easy purchase with or without a cut we didn’t know existed until a few months ago. I’m with you though, and I imagine it’ll get out in some way

[dwk]

Shudder will be releasing The Amusement Park on Blu-ray on September 13th.

[Adam X]

Do you know if they only have US rights? For a physical release, that is.

[brundlefly]

Potemkine released it in France on blu and DVD last December.

[dwk]

Do you know if they only have US rights? For a physical release, that is.

They picked up the rights for all the English speaking territories. I would assume that they have discs rights in all those places, but don't know for sure.

[Adam X]

Thanks for that

[Computer Raheem]

Not entirely certain where to put this, but that Dawn of the Dead 3D conversion Richard P. Rubinstein has been working on (and subsequently hoarding) for a decade is finally getting a release. Here's hoping he makes enough so that an American label can license it for a reasonable price [-o<