The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead (Directors' Cuts) (Paperback)

~ Tony Williams (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tony Williams is Professor and Area Head of Film Studies at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He has published widely in the areas of horror and American independent cinema.

Product Description

The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead is the first in-depth study in English of the career of this foremost auteur working at the margins of the Hollywood mainstream in the horror genre. In placing Romero's oeuvre in the context of literary naturalism, the book explores the relevance of the director's films within American cultural traditions and thus explains the potency of such work beyond 'splatter movie' models. The author explores the roots of naturalism in the work of Emile Zola and traces this through to the EC Comics of the 1950s and on to the work of Stephen King. In so doing, the book illuminates the importance of seminal Romero texts such as Night of the Living Dead (1968), Creepshow (1982), Monkey Shines (1988), The Dark Half (1992). This study also includes full coverage of Romero's latest feature, Bruiser (2000), as well as his screenplays and teleplays.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wallflower Press (May 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1903364736
• ISBN-13: 978-1903364734
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,100,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Romero - More than just a zombie maker, February 21, 2006

By	Stefan Isaksson "www.stefanisaksson.se" (Malmoe, Sweden) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I doubt there's a single horror-movie fan on this entire earth who doesn't know who George A. Romero is, the creator of zombie classics Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead (and the fourth one, Land of the Dead, however, this movie hadn't yet been made when The Cinema of George A. Romero came out and thus it's not included in the book).

But Romero is more than just a creator of zombies, and Tony Williams presents in his book a study of all Romero's movies, not just the ones where the living dead stumbles around in the streets, looking for the next human being they can get a snack from. Romero is a creator of movies where he likes to make a point, or points; he has tons of thoughts and ideas - and especially social criticism - that he includes in his work, and Williams manages to offer a clear picture of Romero's complete production and the reasons as to why it looks the way it does.

This is most definitely a book for movie-lovers, and even though it happens to be a scholarly book this still doesn't mean that movie-lovers who are not scholars cannot get something good out of it. Or put in other words, The Cinema of George A. Romero is a book that can be read by all, scholars as well as non-scholars.

But even though Romero, as we all know, not only masters how to create creepy zombies it's still these creatures and the movies they star in that most people think of when they hear his name. And perhaps that isn't much of a surprise, considering how immensely popular they still are, despite having been made quite a few years ago. The horror genre of today isn't what it used to be, and most contemporary horror flicks are "almost entirely devoid of social meaning and dependent upon gratuitous sensationalism" (p. 21).

Well, not so with the ones made by Romero, and this book will most definitely tell you the reasons why.

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Why do they come here?, September 20, 2004

By	N. P. Stathoulopoulos "nick9155" (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little forced..., July 14, 2006

By	G. Cacciatore - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Well written, but a little forced. The author's preconceived theory (a connection between Romero's works and the literary Naturalism inspired by Emile Zola) overwhelms almost every other aspect of his critical analysis and prevails on more objective aspects of Romero's art; not to mention the historical and documentary insight, which is very poor here. Unfortunately, Williams never doubts of his critical intuitions in this book, despite G. A. Romero himself never mentioned any link between his movies and Zola or others. Maybe a relashionship between Naturalism and Romero could have been an interesting idea, but to say that every single element of his work is probably linked to Dreiser, Zola or Norris, is really too much. Nevertherless, the book examines every single movie of Romero's filmography as far as "Bruiser": it is the most exhaustive (even if one-sided) critical essay about his films up to now.