Dead Speaks To The Living

From:Sci Fi Wire
Date:20-JUNE-05

George A. Romero, director of the zombie sequel film Land of the Dead, said the movie can be seen as a metaphor of the political and economic climate, which he believes seems to favor the wealthy, in the same way his three previous Dead films can be read as commenting on their times. "It's different than in [1978's] Dawn of the Dead," Romero said in an interview. "In Dawn of the Dead it's about the stuff and consumerism, and if you've got a pair of Nikes, you know? This is much more, again, modeled after this administration. It's all executive. Now the stuff is Mont Blancs [pens] and Audemars Piguet [a brand of expensive watch], I don't know. So now it's all fancy stuff for people who can afford it, and the administration is dealing in big, big bucks and doling out little bits to people. As [Dennis Hopper's character] says, 'Keep them off the streets.' And the ... service personnel are relegated to a very different lifestyle. So it just seemed natural [to do this one], because that's what this is really about, right? I mean, it's Halliburton. So it's a different era, where you have money."

Simon Baker stars in Land of the Dead as Riley, a mercenary who procures supplies for the human survivors in the last remaining city, a walled-in metropolis surrounded by a wasteland occupied by the walking dead. Baker, similarly, thinks the movie can be read as a metaphor. "I think if you asked all of us that question, we'd all probably have pretty different answers, and you guys likewise," Baker said in a separate inteview. "For me, a lot of the movie, ... was the idea of having and making decisions on your own and not being told [what to believe] or believing the propaganda. I mean, you've got to understand, the time we were shooting this, the U.S. presidential election was taking place [in the fall of 2004]. In fact, I can tell you the night, the scene we were shooting when it was happening, you know, the actual countdown. And we were shooting on nights and I'd go back to the hotel and turn the telly on just to sort of chill out, and there'd just be CNN, and it'd be all the propaganda. And it was just so hard for anyone to have their own idea or their own opinion without being influenced by the publicity machines of each of the parties, you know? The spin or someone's opinion on CNN. And then who they were owned by or affiliated with, and it was like, 'Hang on a second!' How can one person [decide]? The whole thing is not targeted for the individual to make up their own mind. Everyone's being influenced by a different thing. So that was like a major thing for me, because my character tends to want to go against the grain and say, 'No, this is my [opinion], or this is what I think. Or I'm trying to work out what I think, I don't buy into this, I don't subscribe to that way of thinking. I want to sort of look at it more like this. And that's what it was more about for me." Land of the Dead opens June 24.

From Sci Fi Wire