Dawn of The Dead (1978) Image Analysis 3

This scene from Dawn of the Dead (1979) happens towards the very end of the movie when Peter and Fran are about to make their escape. This high angle shot is used by Romero in an attempt to compare the zombies to normal human beings, and showing that we are actually the monsters of the modern day. Contextually shopping malls were just being built everywhere and were taking off; this is Romero’s way of satirising consumerism again. The Cinematography of this scene is a high angle shot which makes the zombies seem inferior to the setting, this is commenting on how consumerism had a tight hold on the general public of the time. The mise-en-scene of this scene is quite bright; however the most eye catching prop is the red clock in the middle. The red clock connotes danger as red is primarily an evil colour, also having that in shot with zombies adds to the horror aspect of it. The diegetic sound of the three ‘dongs’ from the clock is ominous and breaks the silence, creating tension for the audience just before Peter and Fran make their escape. After the three ‘gongs’ from the clock, Herbert Chappell’s ‘The Gonk’ is played which is contrapuntal to the scene. The music is used by Romero to make the idea of consumerism seem simultaneously appealing yet terrifying to the audiences due to the contextual information with malls being made in the late 1970’s. This contextual theory was first pioneered by a critic called Janet Staiger within her book "Understanding Films" (1990 edition) in which she looks at how audiences respond to films, and how different audience members watch films in different ways. So whilst it may just appear that this mall is overrun by zombies, with the help of Staiger's theory we can see that Romero was actually telling audiences that people act in zombie like mannerisms when it comes to purchasing of products.