Devils Advocate - Dawn Of The Dead book - 2022 [Archive]

Neil

17-Feb-2023, 06:05 PM

George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) is celebrated both as a 'splatter' movie and as a satire of 1970s consumerism. One of the most financially successful independent films ever produced, Dawn of the Dead presented a strong vision to audiences of the time in terms of its excessive, often shocking violence. It challenged censorship internationally and caused controversy in the United States and the UK. The film created problems with distributors because of its length and its graphic content; with the MPAA who awarded it an 'X' in America (a rating usually reserved for pornography); with the BBFC in the UK who completely recut it; and in various European territories where it was released in several versions. Arguably, excess is at the heart of Dawn of the Dead, integral to its meaning: not only in its scenes of gore, its in-your-face social satire and its gaudy pop-kitsch style but in the production history of the film itself. This Devil's Advocate explores the various ways in which Romero took Dawn of the Dead into areas of extremity during its scripting, production and distribution; and the responses of industry, censorship bodies, reviewers and audiences of the time to the film's excesses. Taking the approach of a micro-historical study, Jon Towlson offers a close analysis of the film's production context to explore the cultural significance of Dawn of the Dead as a 'rebel text' and an example of oppositional cinema.

MinionZombie

18-Feb-2023, 01:26 PM

Dawn of the Dead at the BBFC:

https://www.bbfc.co.uk/education/case-studies/dawn-of-the-dead

Dawn Of The Dead was submitted to the BBFC for classification in June 1979 – seven months after the film was released unrated in the US. It is probably true to say that the film arrived at the Board with a certain amount of notoriety; two trailers had previously been submitted and both had suffered cuts. The film was seen by six examiners and the then Director of the BBFC, James Ferman.

The examiners unanimously disliked the film, whilst at the same time acknowledged that Romero had displayed some technical flair in creating pace and atmosphere. Much discussion was given over to the moral framework of the film – were the zombies sentient beings or unfeeling objects; was the violence mitigated by the fact that the zombies are no longer human beings; was the audience being invited to indulge in the killings because the zombies ostensibly felt nothing? One examiner felt so strongly that the film glorified violence that he excluded himself from any further screenings or discussions surrounding the work.

One thing that all the examiners and James Ferman agreed on was that the 125 minute submitted version would have be cut before being released to the general public. Ferman stated that the film featured violence perpetrated against people which was “to a degree never before passed by the Board” and subsequently issued a cuts list that amounted to approximately 55 separate cuts (two minutes 17 seconds). These included images of zombie dismemberment, the machine gunning of a child zombie, a sword cutting open a zombie’s head and most infamously, a slow motion shot of a zombie’s head exploding.

The following month a cut version of the film was re-submitted for re-examination and this time another team of examiners viewed the film. All of the examiners still disliked the film and some were convinced that cutting was not the solution to alleviating the possible desensitising effect that the film might have on vulnerable audiences. Despite this view, the suggestion of further extensive cuts was made and the film was once again seen by James Ferman, who subsequently issued a further one minute 29 seconds of cuts to more scenes of gory detail. At this point the distributor (Target International Pictures) was worried that the film would not be ready in time to be screened at the London Film Festival, so James Ferman suggested that the BBFC’s in-house editor create a version that would be acceptable within the guidelines of the X certificate.

In September 1979 Ferman wrote to the distributor exclaiming that “a tour de force of virtuoso editing has transformed this potential reject from a disgusting and desensitising wallow in the ghoulish details of violence and horror to a strong, but more conventional action piece…The cutting is not only skilful, but creative, and I think it has actually improved a number of the sequences by making the audience notice the emotions of the characters and the horror of the situation instead of being deadened by blood and gore”.

When the work was first submitted for classification for video in 1989 it arrived in its post-BBFC censored version, now clocking in at 120 minutes 20 seconds. However, under the Video Recordings Act 1984 (VRA) , the film was to be subjected to another 12 seconds of cuts to scenes of zombie dismemberment and cannibalism. In 1997 Dawn Of The Dead was picked up by a new distributor (BMG) who took the decision to submit the film in its original uncensored state, with a running time of 139 minutes.

This time the BBFC only insisted on six seconds of cuts. However, it was in 2003 that the film was finally passed at 18 uncut by the BBFC, with the examiners feeling that under the 2000 BBFC Guidelines it was impossible to justify cutting the work – the film contained no material that was unprecedented and that it had in many ways been surpassed by more recent 18 rated horror films such as 28 Days Later and House Of 1,000 Corpses.

That BMG version was how I first saw Dawn of the Dead, so the 'worst' version of it I've ever seen was cut by six seconds (but I've also seen the Argento Cut, and that's a pretty awful affair :lol: ;) ). Actually, I did also see the 8mm 'digest' version (which runs about 45 minutes) and fuck me that's a curious watch! :p

Ferman was a filmmaker himself (a documentarian) before he became the top dog at the BBFC in 1975 and the fucking arrogance of the man at times is stunning. It's also quite incredible that a fellow filmmaker would practically relish in hacking away at the work of other filmmakers. He also had quite the classist air about him - regarding The Texas Chainsaw Massacre he said that it was okay for high-minded cinephiles who were part of a paid membership film club to watch the film and not be turned into drooling maniacs, but the poor old feeble-minded blue collar working class man wouldn't possibly be able to survive such an ordeal. The man was an arse.