The Cinema of George A. Romero (Directors' Cuts)

Rating:
Summary: Why do they come here?
Review: When you see a book titled 'The Cinema of', you know it's supposed to be serious. (Instead of 'The Films of', 'The Movies of', etc.)

Williams, who did a good book about families in the American horror film (Hearths of Darkness) asserts that much of Romero's work is connected with the naturalist tradition of writers like Zola. He also traces lines to EC comics, and connects up Romero works like Dawn of the Dead with the director's hometown of Pittsburgh and a certain vision of a consumerist society that masks a certain social decay.

The problem with books like this, however good the points they make, is often the language and the presentation. There is a large body of Romero fans, particularly Dawn of the Dead fans who may appreciate a 'serious' consideration of the director's films (or his 'cinema'). However, I think most fans are alienated by work like this, which is too stuck in academia and is often bloated by unnecessarily flowery language and interpretation to appeal to the people who are watching these films regularly. It's unfortunate, because film is such a mass, popular medium, and yet the academic study of the medium is too stuck in the ivory tower. It seems like you can't just write the obvious, or even just discuss the films if you want to be taken seriously. In order to be write a 'serious' book about an American indie's 'cinema', you have to wrap it up in frameworks that are as lifelike as some of Romero's zombies. The book certainly has good points to make and provides some food for thought (or flesh for thought), but I found it a bit much at times as Williams almost painfully recounts scenes from the films with weighty pronouncements (not particularly backed up) and also, annoyingly, gets names and quotes wrong (fact-checking).

Maybe Romero will return to the sub-genre he created with a film about zombies running rampant in a university...