Birth of the Living Dead Page #4

When they're human,

the way they die

is the way they're going

to stay when they're zombies

until they turn into dust.

What is the purpose

of a zombie?

Aria.

They like to eat people.

They don't live

to do anything else.

They just like to eat

and eat and eat.

You guys remember what

I said, the need to feed?

Remember?

Say it again.

The need to feed!

Say it again.

The need to feed!

Again.

The need to feed!

That is it!

To me there's something, um,

definitive and classical

about the terror

and the simplicity.

It's not overblown.

She gets in the car,

what do you do?

You undo the clutch.

She goes and she blows it

and runs into the tree!

I mean, oh my God!

Every shot does feel

iconic at this point.

And I'm speaking of these

first 10 minutes.

Every shot is iconic.

It doesn't feel storyboarded.

Everything feels organically,

like it's organically unfolding.

She sees the lonely house

in the distance

and that's sort

of another iconic shot.

This to me is one of the great

sequences in any movie.

Duane Jones,

a classically trained actor,

played the role

of Ben, the hero.

One of the things amazing

to me when I saw it this time,

and it really blew my mind,

was the fact that no one

reacts to Duane Jones,

or the character

as a black man.

It's alright.

There really wasn't

an audition.

Uh, you know, we never

auditioned Duane.

He was just a beautifully

impressive guy.

He was a really

beautiful person, too.

The script wasn't written,

the character wasn't described

as white, black,

yellow, red, or anything.

And we thought we were

doing the right thing

by not changing the script

when we decided to use Duane.

Here is a white woman,

very pale, blonde woman,

who runs into a house

and is rescued by a black man.

And there's no reaction!

There's a pump out here that's

locked, is there a key?

She's out of it, she's scared,

she's frightened,

but not of him.

Which in 1968, as strange

as it seems, was still something

that the average audience

really would have noticed.

It would have registered to them

as something different.

It felt like such a modern

movie in that obviously

it was never remarked

upon that he was black.

Nobody said anything about it

the way they did

in other movies.

And keep in mind,

this was a time

when there was

a hugely popular TV show,

"The Andy Griffith Show,"

taking place in the south,

and there were

no black people in it.

So that to have

this mainstream culture

refuse to acknowledge

any kind of black catalyst

and to have it there

and not be remarked upon,

it really felt

like a brand new day.

I don't think anyone had ever

seen anything like that,

in the 60s.

Chiz Schultz produced

television specials

starring Harry Belafonte

in the late 1960s.

We had Petula Clark

who was the top

British singer at the time.

And they had a number together.

And at one point toward the end

Harry links arms with Petula

and they sing the final verse.

And we finished

dress rehearsal.

And the man in charge of

advertising for Chrysler said,

"Belafonte cannot

touch Petula Clark."

And we were sort of in shock.

And Belafonte said, "I'm not

sure I understood you."

He said, "There will be

no touching of Miss Clark."

Remember, we have to sell

cars in the South."

And Harry said,

"Give me just a minute."

And he called

the president of Chrysler.

And he said, "You should know

I'm calling a press conference

in 10 minutes

to say that Chrysler

will not allow me

to touch Petula Clark."

We went into air time.

The taping.

Harry and Petula linked arms.

But that was not unusual.

That was the atmosphere

at the time.

We were only a year past

"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"

which had made its

entire subject

the shockingness

of inter-racial marriage.

Mom, this is John.

Doc, Doc, Doctor Prentiss.

I'm so pleased to meet you.

I'm pleased to meet

you, Mrs. Drayton.

"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,"

was criticized for taking pains

not to offend white moviegoers

and for being out of touch

with the racial storms of 1967.

And it never occurred

to me that I might fall

in love with a Negro!

Of Sidney Poitier's character,

H. Rap Brown said:

This kind of criticism

wasn't new to Poitier.

I remember watching

Sidney Poitier

in the Stanley Kramer film,

"The Defiant Ones."

And, uh, it was him

and Tony Curtis

playing these two convicts

who escape from the chain gang,

and near the very

end of the film,

they're trying to get

to this rail road, right?

But Tony can't

hold on, he can't,

the train's moving too fast.

So instead of Sidney

lets Tony drop,

Sidney falls off, too.

And then you see

the last scene,

and Sidney's cradling

Tony Curtis in his arms,

and he starts

singing this song.

If I ever do see his face once

more, he never get home again

Cradling Tony, you know,

as the law enforcement people

come down on them.

And I remember

thinking back then

when I was 15, 16 years old,

Sidney, you crazy, man?

Let that white man go.

Save yourself, you know.

Because it was like,

he was always becoming, at,

by that time, he was becoming

sort of like this, this savior.

African American heroes

in the mid-60s in movies

were allowed

to be really smart,

they weren't necessary

allowed to be aggressive

or strong or tough.

I mean, Poitier started

to break that barrier

in "In the Heat of the Night,"

but the most he could do

was slap a white man

in the face

after he is slapped in the face

by that white man.

Poitier played a detective

who in this scene

dared to interrogate

a rich white man.

You saw it.

I saw it.

The slap was

an electric moment in 1967.

Then all of a sudden

Duane Jones is like the lead,

basically in

an all-white film.

But he comes across as a very

strong, focused character.

Duane was very upset whenever

he had to do anything violent.

He's a, you know, very

sensitive kind of a guy.

And what's a really

telling scene

is when he slaps the women.

It's even more intense

than when Sidney

hits what's-his-name

in "In the Heat of the Night."

He really slapped her.

Particularly, "I'm going

to slap a white woman"

and shoot a white guy.

"And uh, I'm going

to be in trouble!"

And then when

he shoots the guy!

You know, he shoots the guy!

I said, "This is a bold

black man for 1967!"

Very bold.

You would never put

"Night of the Living Dead"

on the spectrum

of blaxploitation

and black power movies

that started to happen

in the late 60s and early 70s,

but in a way,

you know, it really,

it precedes "Shaft,"

it precedes "Superfly,"

it precedes all those movies

where the African American

main character

was suddenly

no longer accommodationist

and exceptional and polite.

He's black.

He's brutal.

He's boss.

But, you know,

tough and empowered.

And of course we discussed it,

and Duane, as I said,

was the most sensitive

among us to the racial issue

and how some of that

stuff might resonate.

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