I go to conventions and universities and talk to young filmmakers and everybody's making a zombie movie! It's because it's easy to get the neighbors to come out, put some ketchup on them.
George A. RomeroRead
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the challenge of creating unique art in a saturated market influenced by popular media.
George A. Romero, known as the father of the zombie genre, highlights the impact of successful franchises like 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead' on the creative process. He expresses frustration that the popularity of these works overshadows smaller, more nuanced zombie films that aim to explore sociopolitical themes. His statement underscores how mainstream success can complicate artistic expression and originality within a genre.
In practice
In a film analysis discussion, referencing this quote could illustrate the conflict between mainstream and indie cinema.
I go to conventions and universities and talk to young filmmakers and everybody's making a zombie movie! It's because it's easy to get the neighbors to come out, put some ketchup on them.
I've always felt that the real horror is next door to us, that the scariest monsters are our neighbors.
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 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.
There aren't that many monsters. It's very hard to create a new monster.
What a lumbering poor vehicle prose is for the conveying of a great thought! ... Prose wanders around with a lantern & laboriously schedules & verifies the details & particulars of a valley & its frame of crags & peaks, then Poetry comes, & lays bare the whole landscape with a single splendid flash.
People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap.
In fiction, imaginary people become realer to us than any named celebrity glimpsed in a series of rumored events, whose causes and subtler ramifications must remain in the dark. An invented figure like Anna Karenina or Emma Bovary emerges fully into the light of understanding, which brings with it identification, sympathy and pity.
So it's joyful to me, in my 71st year, to be able to be in a play that is absolutely right for my age and my experience, and that is a popular success. What more could you ask as an actor?
I never try to convey a message, I just want to tell a story. Why that story in particular? I have no idea, but I have learned to surrender to the muse. I become obsessed with a theme or with certain stories; they haunt me for years, and finally, I write them.
It is the writer's privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.
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