Director: Rob Kuhns
Featuring: George A. Romero,
Larry Fessenden, Mark Harris, S. William Hinzman, Gale Anne Hurd, Elvis
Mitchell, Jason Zinoman, Samuel D. Pollard, Chiz Schultz
Film critic Gene Siskel had
an idiom about the success of a film that stated that the best measure of a
film was to imagine if a documentary with the same actors having lunch would be
more entertaining. Of course, when it comes to zombie films, that is what you’re
watching—the zombies having lunch. The man responsible for realizing this
vision was George A. Romero, who rewrote the rules of zombies into our modern
notion of what a zombie is—a dead person who has been reanimated and desires
only to dine on brains (and the rest of your flesh) while the only way to stop
one is by destroying their brain. This is basically what Romero came up with in
his first film, 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead”—originally titled “Night of
the Flesh Eaters”. Watching this documentary, which includes a great deal of
footage of Romero just talking by himself, you’ll find he’s as entertaining as
his movie.
“Birth of the Living Dead”
isn’t just Romero talking about the creation of his seminal masterpiece. Several
other filmmakers and critics are interviewed, but Romero is its greatest
highlight. He’s intelligent, well spoken, funny, charming, humble, and
genuinely surprised that he created something that changed everything and gave
him a lifelong career in the process. Also contributing ideas and memories in
Rob Kuhns’ very comprehensive documentary are AMC’s “The Walking Dead”
executive producer Gale Anne Hurd, filmmaker Larry Fessenden (“Wendigo”, “Stake
Land”), and New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell. But it’s Romero that
makes this documentary shine.
He regales us with tales of
a bunch of know-nothing kids trying to make a movie in Pittsburgh. We learn how
local television celebrities populated much of the cameo roles and how the
local news channel helped by providing their helicopter for authenticity to the
news coverage in the film. The sheriff—who provides all the greatest quotes
from the movie—was just a local yokel who adlibbed all that great stuff.
“They’re dead. They’re all messed up.”
The other talking heads add
some key information about the thematic content of the movie, providing the
context of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. We learn from Romero
that no statement was intended by the casting of a black man in the lead.
According to the man himself, the role wasn’t written with a black actor in
mind and no race at all was mentioned in the script. Duane Jones was just a
classically trained actor who had the best audition. Jones himself had to point
out some of the touchy notions that might be gleaned by audiences witnessing a
black man “killing” the mindless white zombies.
There are good amounts of other
flourishes from Kuhns. The footage he includes of the Vietnam War is used
rather well to juxtapose the violence Romero depicts in his film. He chooses
shots from both sets of footage that looks similar in nature to convey the
anger Romero was trying to express about the tumultuous times in which they
were living. There is also some nice retro animation used to link images of the
original film to the behind the scenes footage that is rather artfully done. He
ends the film with a nice tribute to actor Bill Heinzman, who through his work
in “Night of the Living Dead” became the first person ever to present the
modern zombie to audiences.
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