Zitat des Tages von George A. Romero:
My zombie films were all sort of satirical, with political messages. So I was doing them inexpensively and quietly off in left field somewhere.
Ever since 'Lassie' and 'Old Yeller', I won't watch animal movies. Animals in movies always die.
'Night of the Living Dead,' then 'Dawn of the Dead' is a few weeks later, 'Day of the Dead' months later, and 'Land of the Dead' is three years later. Each one spoke about a different decade and was stylistically different.
The very fact that you thought of it means that, somewhere in your mind, it's believable to you. All you have to do is convince your audience that it's possible.
There are so many factors when you think of your own films. You think of the people you worked on it with, and somehow forget the movie. You can't forgive the movie for a long time. It takes a few years to look at it with any objectivity and forgive its flaws.
I've made six zombie films; I've tried consciously to make each one different from the next.
Nursery rhymes were political when they were first written! To me, that's what it's about: it's about using it to say something more than just what the story is.
Pittsburgh, for a while, became a production centre. There was one $400 million year. Hollywood was bringing productions in there. Films like 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Innocent Blood.' So my guys, the guys I worked with, were able to have careers and live at home. But then it dried up, and a lot of my friends left.
I grew up on DC Comics, moral tales where the bad guys got their comeuppance. To me the gory panels or grotesque stuff just made me chuckle.
If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart.
What the Internet's value is that you have access to information but you also have access to every lunatic that's out there that wants to throw up a blog.
I wanted 'Night of the Living Dead' to look naturalistic, but we weren't able to do it because we were shooting with a blimped 35mm camera, which is automatically static.
I think you're only free if you're working on very low or huge money.
The most realistic blood I've seen is when Marlon Brando gets beat up in On The Waterfront.
On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.
One thing about a film production is that it must run efficiently; there is no room for dead wood. So somebody that hangs around by the coffee wagon won't get hired again, but somebody who is dedicated and works hard and really puts out will get noticed by the people that matter around there and will get asked to come back again.
If one horror film hits, everyone says, 'Let's go make a horror film.' It's the genre that never dies.
The only advice you can give is, 'Don't let the bad stuff keep you down.'
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.
I like guys who are understandable and good guys who are flawed.
My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react, or react stupidly. I'm pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.
Back then, in 1968, everything was suspect - family, government, and obviously the family unit in 'Night of the Living Dead' completely collapses. That's what we were focused on.
The 'Dead' films allow me to talk about things that a drama, say, won't. 'Dawn Of The Dead,' which was set in a shopping mall, is on one level about consumerism; 'Land Of The Dead' is a response to Bush.
My films, I've tried to put a message into them. It's not about the gore; it's not about the horror element that are in them. It's more about the message, for me. That's what it is, and I'm using this platform to be able to show my feelings of what I think.
I'm more alarmed by people reacting violently to the violence in my films than I am by the violence in films.
There is something about the sameness people like. And what I've tried to do with all the zombie films is purposely make them different. That may be part of why it takes so long for people to see what it's intended to be.
As a filmmaker you get typecast just as much as an actor does, so I'm trapped in a genre that I love, but I'm trapped in it!
I've never had a zombie eat a brain! I don't know where that comes from. Who says zombies eat brains?
Most of my stuff was sort of of-the-time. 'The Crazies' was, basically, we were angry about Vietnam, and it had a reason for being.
The hardest thing when you're making a zombie movie is, 'How am I going to kill these zombies? I need a clever way to knock these guys off.'
For me, tribalism and religion are basically the big reasons we're in trouble. Patriotism, tribalism, and religion.
I'm a Turner Classic Movies guy. That's it. I'd much rather sit here and watch an oldie than anything new.
Nothing's ever real until it's real.
Somehow I've been able to keep standing and stay in my little corner and do my little stuff and I'm not particularly affected by trends or I'm not dying to make a 3D movie or anything like that. I'm just sort of happy to still be around.
With CG, I can do more and be sillier. In 'Diary,' there's a scene where they hit a guy with acid, and the camera is never off him, and you see it gradually eat through his skull and get all the way through his brain. That's fun, too.
