Night of the Living Dead

BFI Film Classics

Ben Harvey

British Film Institute

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George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential horror films of all time.  Shot on a low budget on black and white film, Night depicts an America under siege from reanimated corpses.  The action centres around a motley group of survivors holed up in a suburb of Pittsburgh, besieged by flesh-eating ghouls.  Romero’s focus on tensions between members of this makeshift community resonates with contemporary racial and gender conflicts and, in addition to its shockingly visceral content, the film’s impact lay in its engagement with contemporary social upheaval – Vietnam and the peace movement, the civil rights struggle, assassinations and escalating urban tensions.

Benjamin Hervey’s study of the film is the first to provide a close analysis of the film and an in-depth account of its reception. Drawing on original archival research, Hervey traces how the film quickly gained cult status, while at the same time it was hailed as a piece of art cinema and as a deep political allegory.  Hervey analyses the film scene-by-scene, detailing how the scoring, editing, photography and lighting came together to overall powerful effect.  He provides a richly detailed historical context for his reading of the film, showing, for example, how scenes in Night directly relate to contemporary news coverage of Vietnam.

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James  rated it  
Mar 1, 2011
Hervey provides an excellent examination of this classic horror film, in the context of American society in 1968, the horror film at the same time, and an analysis of the film's content and style. He examines the different audiences that supported the film (members of Warhol's art crowd were early s ...more
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Donna  rated it  
Feb 5, 2010
This is a good overview of the production and impact of the movie that introduced our modern pop culture's view of zombies. If you've never seen the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead (not the remake, and never the butchered 30th Anniversary Edition), then you're missing out on a very, very good ...more
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About the Author

Ben Harvey

Ben Hervey has taught and lectured in Film Studies and Anglo-American Literature at the Universities of Oxford and Reading.  He now works mainly as a screenwriter and film historian.

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Night of the Living Dead
BFI Film Classics
Ben Harvey

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
British Film Institute
July 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9781844571741
ISBN10: 1844571742
5 3/10 x 7 1/2 inches, 128 pages, illus: b/w
$14.95
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