By Todd Garbarini
The
Definitive Document of the Dead
is the latest incarnation of director Roy Frumkes’s insightful
behind-the-scenes look at the making of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), a film that has achieved a level of
adoration and cult status that is truly amazing given that it was released
unrated at a time when such a maneuver was considered box office poison. No doubt increasing in popularity after its
release on VHS (this is where Yours Truly first saw it in the summer of 1985), Dawn has become the zombie film by which
all others are measured. What this 16mm documentary
illustrates brilliantly is the creative process that a director must go
through, and it conveys it extremely well to the average moviegoer who may not
have the slightest idea as to how a movie is made. It looks at its subject from
the standpoint of filmmaking as an art form, and at one point director Romero,
with omnipresent cigarette in hand, even compares the process to painting, and
how an artist uses watercolors and “accidents” in their final work. Dawn went
into production in October 1977 at the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville,
Pennsylvania and lasted approximately six months (if you believe the Internet
Movie Database) and thankfully Mr. Frumkes actively sought and was given access
to the mall set over a weekend in January of 1978 (my guess is that this was
the third or fourth week of that month as the archival footage shows the entire
exterior of the mall blanketed in snow; the entire Northeast had suffered a snowfall
of one to nearly two feet at that time).
Most documentaries that appear on DVD
and Blu-ray nowadays are nothing more than self-promotion pieces. The Definitive Document of the Dead, on
the other hand, actually takes you behind the scenes of the film and enlightens
the viewer on the creative process, specifically the teamwork and the
collaborative nature of the people working on the film. Mr. Frumkes talks to Tom Savini, Michael
Gornick, John Amplas, Richard Rubenstein, the cast of Dawn, and of course director Romero himself (it’s interesting to
note that filming had to be suspended from Thanksgiving until just after
Christmas as decorations populated the mall. Of course, nowadays Christmas
starts being promoted as early as the end of August, something probably
completely unheard of 35 years ago!). The
documentary gives us a great look into Mr. Romero's creative methods of
filmmaking; he is quite candid about how he makes movies and discusses how he
feels about being compared to Alfred Hitchcock with his 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. The comparison probably stems from the fact
that the opening scenes look like a throwback to silent cinema storytelling,
and that is an area that Night excels
at, giving visual information to the audience and pulling us into the movie. There is mention of Howard Hawks’s film
version of The Thing, released in
1951, as the movie that introduced Mr. Romero to horror and the idea of
confined spaces made him want to make movies. Another pivotal film that is not touched upon
in this documentary (but is mentioned on the newly-recorded commentary provided
by Mr. Frumkes) is Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger's The Tales of Hoffmann, also from 1951, a
film that was an enormous influence on Mr. Romero and aided in the creation of
his own personal visual style. He also
talks about how actor Duane Jones, the lead black actor in Night, was chosen simply because he was the best actor who
auditioned for the role, squashing rumors that he was making a statement about the
black man’s struggles in a white man’s world. Naturally, this draws comparisons
to Ken Foree’s role in Dawn. Richard
Rubenstein also weighs in and discusses the European style of producing, and
how Dario Argento and his brother Claudio co-financed Dawn. Dawn was originally
a much darker picture with a very down and bleak ending. As shooting
progressed, the film took on a comic bookish feel and there is an obvious
lightening up of mood. Whereas Mr. Romero had a crew of about eight people on Martin (1977), Dawn has a cast and crew
in the hundreds. The most fascinating part of the documentary has Mr. Romero
describing the rhythms created by editing and spatial design. Prior to his
foray into feature filmmaking, Mr. Romero honed his editing skills by making many
30-second commercials (like Sir Ridley Scott who made roughly 3000(!) prior to The Duellists (1977) and Alien (1979).
After a discussion about the
distribution of the film and leaving it unrated with a running time of just over
two hours, the documentary switches gears to the 1989 summer filming of Two Evil Eyes (1991). Mr. Romero
discusses how he wants a family atmosphere on the set without any of the political
Hollywood nonsense. There is also a
follow-up segment on Land of the Dead
(2005) which focuses on Mr. Romero's daughter, Tina Romero, who discusses how
she got involved in filmmaking. Be
warned: there is a trailer for a hard-core sex parody of Night, and I'll let your imagination guess what the title of this
film is! While this trailer does not
contain any overt sex, there is much nudity.
There is also footage of the Chiller Theatre
convention in 2005 which features a reunion of the cast of Day of the Dead, discussions with Greg Nicotero, Bill Lustig, and
some of the cast and crew of Dawn.
The final segments, all of which are shot on standard definition video, ends
with Mr. Frumkes heading to the Toronto set of Diary of the Dead in the fall of 2006. While these last few segments are nowhere
near as incisive as the footage shot for Dawn,
they still are relevant, fun to watch and make The Definitive Document of the Dead a worthy addition to the libraries
of Romero fans.
This documentary has been available on
home video several times before. It first made the rounds in 1985, and I first
time I saw it was four years later when it was released on VHS. It also appears
on Dawn of the Dead: the Ultimate Edition,
which was released on DVD in September 2004. Synapse Films then released it on DVD in 1999 with some nice extras,
including a commentary with Mr. Frumkes and some cast and crew members. This latest version, The Definitive Document of the Dead, goes further than its previous
incarnations. In addition to the extra
footage that has been added, it begins with a slightly different beginning than
its predecessors: a very humorous introduction by Mr. Romero for the audience
at a screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX and segues into a little
bit of a discussion that he had in 2006 in Huntington, Long Island.
The documentary is available in two
flavors: as a single, stand-alone standard definition DVD with a newly-recorded
commentary provided by Mr. Frunkes running 102 minutes that covers Dawn up to Diary, and as a limited edition DVD/Blu-ray combo set that includes
a standard definition DVD with the aforementioned extras, plus a Blu-ray of Mr.
Frumkes’s original, 1978 documentary Document
of the Dead, which runs 66 minutes and was scanned in high definition from
the 16mm master. If you have a Blu-ray
player, it is worth spending the extra cash to get the limited edition, which
also contains a fold-out poster of Wes Benscoter’s beautiful new cover art for
the DVD and Blu-ray. Have a look at this
artist’s website. His work is brilliant.
NOTE: It has come to our attention that the Blu-ray edition of this title sold out immediately. The DVD edition is still available from Amazon. Click here to order
