Dawn of the Dead (1979) Image Analysis

In this scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979), we see a zombies head being shot off. We see a huge amount of graphic body horror here. We can see an explosion of blood and brains which would cause the audience to cringe. The shot was fired by a white racist character and the victim is a coloured man, which shows racism. This reflects the auteur influence of Romero and he hated racism, partly because of his half Cuban roots. Shots are edited together to create a quick montage to confuse and excite the viewer. The lighting is of quite a high key to allow us to see how harsh the gore really is. A medium close up shot is used so all of the gore can fit into the frame and even fill the whole shot to make the gore seem bigger and harsher. The Hays Code had completely deteriorated when this film was made so a lot of harsh and shocking gore was allowed to be used, although the level of Tom Savini’s effects menat that it was initially released as “Unrated” in the USA.

In this scene of Dawn of the Dead (1979) we see the character Flyboy getting attacked by a zombie in the dark boiler room. Fly boy fits the Cultural Dominant Ideology well as he is a reporter for a news channel, and would normally fit the stereotype of the hero. We see Stephen actually being a really awful hero and he nearly gets bitten by a slow zombie before he finally manages to shoot him. The low key lighting used in this scene was essential to create a scary atmosphere that would make the audience feel uneasy due to extensive shadows. Collision cutting is used here to make the audience jump and feel confused about all the images flashing at them at a quick pace. The slow build up contrasts with the zombie suddenly jumping out and attacking Stephen. It creates excitement for the audience. Nearly every type of shot was used to create this mise-en-scene, like close ups, skewed angles, point of view, handheld camera and many others. These types of shots and editing compliment the theme well. All the shots are creating different emotions like fear and even upsetting because you feel sorry for Stephen as he is useless at defending himself. The parallel music also adds to the eerie atmosphere.

In this scene of Dawn of the Dead (1979) we see Flyboy shaking Peter’s hand while stealing money from a cash register. This links to the context of the film. During the time that it was made as shopping malls had just started to be built and become extremely popular. However, what is happening in this scene goes against the cultural dominant ideology as racism was a huge problem in this time. Here we see a white person shaking a black person’s hand showing unity between them. Peter is also the most charismatic character in the scene and movie. This scene comes along with a line of other scenes within the mall of the characters all having a good time making it a montage. The music being played during this time is parallel with the emotions that the characters are feeling, but is also contrapuntal considering the situation that these people find themselves in. The Auteur theory by Andrew S Harris (in his essay “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”) is also apparent as George A. Romero was firmly against the idea of consumerism in this time. The film shows how malls played a huge part in the growth of consumerism, and how they could lead to rampant greed. Peter is definitely the most charismatic character in the scene and movie.