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George A. Romero

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George A. Romero
Romero in Venice, 2009
Born
George Andrew Romero

(1940-02-04) February 4, 1940 (age 84)
New York, NY, U.S.
Occupation(s)film director
screenwriter
editor
actor
SpouseChristine Forrest (1981–2010)

George Andrew Romero (born February 4, 1940) is an American-Canadian[1][2] film director, screenwriter, and editor best known for his gruesome and satirical horror films about a hypothetical zombie apocalypse. He is nicknamed "Godfather of all Zombies."

Life and career

Romero was born in New York City to a Cuban-born father of Castilian Spanish parentage[3] and a Lithuanian-American mother.[4][5] His father worked as a commercial artist.[6] Romero attended Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1960,[7] he began his career shooting short films and commercials. One of his early commercial films, a segment for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood in which Mr. Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy,[8][dead link] inspired Romero to go into the horror film business.[9] He, along with nine friends, formed Image Ten Productions in the late 1960s, and produced Night of the Living Dead (1968). The movie, directed by Romero and co-written with John A. Russo, became a cult classic and a defining moment for modern horror cinema.

Other inspiration for Romero's filmmaking, as told to Robert K. Elder in an interview for The Film That Changed My Life[10], was the film The Tales of Hoffmann.

It was the filmmaking, the fantasy, the fact that it was a fantasy and it had a few frightening, sort of bizarre things in it. It was everything. It was really a movie for me, and it gave me an early appreciation for the power of visual media—the fact that you could experiment with it. He was doing all his tricks in-camera, and they were sort of obvious. That made me feel that, gee, maybe I could figure this medium out. It was transparent, but it worked.[11]

Three films that followed were less popular: There's Always Vanilla (1971), Jack's Wife / Season of the Witch (1972) and The Crazies (1973) were not as well received as Night of the Living Dead or some of his later work. The Crazies, dealing with a bio spill that induces an epidemic of homicidal madness, and the critically acclaimed arthouse success Martin (1977), a film that deals with the vampire myth, were the two well-known films from this period. Like many of his films, they were shot in or around Pittsburgh.

In 1978, Romero returned to the zombie genre with Dawn of the Dead (1978). Shot on a budget of just $500,000, the film earned over $55 million worldwide and was named one of the top cult films by Entertainment Weekly in 2003. Romero made a third entry in his "Dead Series" with Day of the Dead (1985).

Between these two films, Romero shot Knightriders (1981), another festival favorite about a group of modern-day jousters who reenact tournaments on motorcycles, and the successful Creepshow (1982), written by Stephen King, an anthology of tongue-in-cheek tales modeled after 1950s horror comics.

From the latter half of the 1980s and into the 1990s came Monkey Shines (1988), about a killer helper monkey, Two Evil Eyes (1990), an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation in collaboration with Dario Argento, the Stephen King adaptation The Dark Half (1993) and Bruiser (2000), about a man whose face becomes a blank mask.

Romero updated his original screenplay and executive produced the remake of Night of the Living Dead directed by Tom Savini for Columbia/TriStar in 1990. Romero had a cameo appearance in Jonathan Demme's Academy Award-winning The Silence of the Lambs in 1991 as one of Hannibal Lecter's jailers.


In 1998, he directed the live-action commercial promoting the videogame Resident Evil 2 in Tokyo, Japan. The 30-second advertisement was live action and featured the game's two main characters, Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield, fighting a horde of zombies while in Raccoon City's Police Station. The project was obvious territory for Romero; the Resident Evil series has been heavily influenced by Romero's "Dead" projects. The commercial was rather popular and was released in the weeks before the game's actual release, although a contract dispute prevented the commercial from being shown outside Japan. Capcom was so impressed with Romero's work, it was strongly indicated that Romero would direct the first Resident Evil film. He declined at first — "I don't wanna make another film with zombies in it, and I couldn't make a movie based on something that ain't mine"[citation needed] — although in later years, he reconsidered and wrote a script for the first movie. It was eventually rejected in favor of Paul W. S. Anderson's version.

Universal Studios produced and released a remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004, with which Romero was not involved. Later that year, Romero kicked off the DC Comics title Toe Tags with a six-issue miniseries titled The Death of Death. Based on an unused script that Romero had previously written as a sequel to his "Dead Trilogy," the comic miniseries concerns Damien, an intelligent zombie who remembers his former life, struggling to find his identity as he battles armies of both the living and the dead. Typical of a Romero zombie tale, the miniseries includes ample supply of both gore and social commentary (dealing particularly here with corporate greed and terrorism — ideas he would also explore in his next film in the series, Land of the Dead). Romero has stated that the miniseries is set in the same kind of world as his 'Dead' films, but featured other locales besides Pittsburgh, where the majority of his films take place.[12]

Romero, who lives in Toronto, Ontario, filmed a fourth "Dead" movie in that city titled Land of the Dead. The movie's working title was "Dead Reckoning".[13] Its $16 million production budget was the highest of the four movies in the series.[14] Actors Simon Baker, Dennis Hopper, Asia Argento, and John Leguizamo star in the film. It was released on June 24, 2005 to generally positive reviews.

Romero attending a horror convention, 2005

Some critics have seen social commentary in much of Romero's work. They view Night of the Living Dead as a film made in reaction to the turbulent 1960s, Dawn of the Dead as a satire on consumerism, Day of the Dead as a study of the conflict between science and the military, and Land of the Dead as an examination of class conflict.

Romero collaborated with the game company Hip Interactive in creating a game called City of the Dead, but the game was canceled midway due to the financial problems of the company.

In June 2006, Romero began his next project, called Zombisodes. Broadcast on the Web, they are a combination of a series of "Making of" shorts and story expansion detailing the work behind the film George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead. Shooting began in Toronto in July 2006.[15]

In August 2006, The Hollywood Reporter made two announcements about Romero, the first being that he will write and direct a film based on a short story by Koji Suzuki, author of Ring and Dark Water, called Solitary Isle[16] and the second announcement pertaining to his signing on to write and direct George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, which follows a group of college students making a horror movie in the woods, who stumble on a real zombie uprising. When the onslaught begins, they seize the moment as any good film students would, capturing the undead in a cinema verite style that causes more than the usual production headaches.[17][18] The film was independently financed, making it the first indie zombie film Romero has done in years.

After a limited theatrical release, Diary of the Dead was released on DVD by Dimension Extreme on May 20, 2008, and later to Blu-ray Disc on October 21, 2008.

Shooting began in Toronto in September 2008 for Romero's newest zombie film. The title was Survival of the Dead and the production company was called Blank of the Dead. Originally, the film was reported to be a direct sequel to Diary of the Dead, but the film features a new cast of characters, and did not retain the first-person camerawork of Diary of the Dead. Filming commenced on the movie, with Alan Van Sprang starring who featured in Romero's Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, and the majority of the story taking place on an island. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. Prior to the May 28, 2010 theatrical release in the United States, Survival of the Dead was made available to Video On Demand and a special one-night-only sneak preview was aired May 26, 2010 on HDNet.

Personal life

Romero is currently separated from his wife, Christine Forrest, whom he met on the set of Season of the Witch. They have two children together. Romero became a Canadian Citizen in 2009.[19][20] He is also staring in the 2010 epic FPS black ops video game in the second map pack. "Escalation" where he is the special zombie in the new zombies map Call Of The Dead with Danny Trejo,Robert Englund,Micheal Rooker and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Influences

Romero ranked his top ten films of all time for the 2002 Sight & Sound Greatest Films Poll (2002). They are The Brothers Karamazov, Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove, High Noon, King Solomon's Mines, North by Northwest, The Quiet Man, Repulsion, Touch of Evil and The Tales of Hoffman. Romero listed the films in alphabetical order, with special placement given to The Tales of Hoffman, which he cites as "my favourite film of all time; the movie that made me want to make movies."[21]

Filmography

Main article: George A. Romero filmography

Awards and nominations

On October 27, 2009, Romero was honored with the Mastermind Award at Spike TV's Scream 2009. The tribute was presented by longtime Romero fan Quentin Tarantino, who stated in his speech that the "A" in George A. Romero stood for "A fucking genius."

Legacy

In 2010, writer and actor Mark Gatiss interviewed Romero for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror, in which he appears in the third episode.[22]

Romero is set to appear as a boss enemy in Call of The Dead, the newest map in the Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies mode from the Escalation DLC. He was also featured in the advert the for said DLC pack.

Books

  1. Dawn of the Dead (with Susan Sparrow; movie tie-in), 1979
  2. Bizarro! by Tom Savini (foreword), 1984
  3. Martin (with Susan Sparrow; movie tie-in), 1984
  4. Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector (foreword), 1989
  5. Toe Tags #1-6 ("The Death of Death"; DC Comics), 2004–2005
  6. ZOMBIES! An Illustrated History of the Undead Foreword Written by George A. Romero

Critical studies

  • Gagne, Paul R. The Zombies That Ate Pittsburgh: the Films of George A. Romero (New York: Dodd, Mead 1987)
  • Newman, Kim. Nightmare Movies: A Critical History of the Horror Film 1968–1988 (1988)
  • Williams, Tony. Knight of the Living Dead: The Cinema of George A. Romero (London: Wallflower Press 2003)

References

  1. ^ "Q&A: George A. Romero".
  2. ^ "NEW DETAILS: Toronto Zombie Walk to Honour George A. Romero (Sept 12)".
  3. ^ "George A. Romero On His Latino Heritage: 'I Was The Shark, Not The Jet'".
  4. ^ The GENRE ONLINE.NET Interview - Writer and Director George A. Romero
  5. ^ Movies.about.com article
  6. ^ George A. Romero Biography (1940–)
  7. ^ George Romero
  8. ^ "Mr. Rogers underwent a tonsillectomy".
  9. ^ Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream at IMDb
  10. ^ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556528256/ref=nosim/wwwrobelderco-20
  11. ^ Romero, George A. Interview by Robert K. Elder. The Film That Changed My Life. By Robert K. Elder. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2011. N. p261. Print.
  12. ^ newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php
  13. ^ Release data and AKA information at IMDB
  14. ^ George A. Romero Interview
  15. ^ George A. Romero's Next Project
  16. ^ aintitcool.com
  17. ^ cinescape
  18. ^ aintitcool.com
  19. ^ Norman Wilner. "Q&A: George A. Romero".
  20. ^ "NEW DETAILS: Toronto Zombie Walk to Honour George A. Romero (Sept 12)".
  21. ^ BFI - Sight & Sound Top Ten Poll 2002
  22. ^ "A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss - Q&A with Mark Gatiss". BBC. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
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