DAWN OF THE DEAD (1979) image analysis

 This scene from ‘Dawn of the Dead’ (1979) challenges the usual conventions within a usual gory/action horror within the idea of Propp’s character theory. Usually the ‘good looking’, ‘masculine’ man is considered to be the hero of the film, but here we have a less good looking, shorter, blonde man portraying the characteristics of the hero, and the typical ‘male hero’ conveyed as hopeless. The use of the phallic symbol (the gun), and the fact that ‘flyboy’ is useless at using it foreshadows the fact that he lacks sexual action from his girlfriend later on in the film.

The evening time diegesis setting in implies that the darkness of the film starts from here and suggests that the day is wearing thin and danger is caving in bringing with it; danger. Also the setting of mise-en-scene connotes loneliness and a sense of solitude.