Thursday, June 13, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
PRAMOUP
In a conference call, director Marc Forster elaborated on his inspiration for a film that looks to innovate the zombie genre.
Zombies reinvented
Forster discusses
artistic vision of
'World War Z'
By SEAN CZARNECKI
Daily Film Editor
"World War Z" crashes into the-
aters amid the zombie fascination
gripping millions across the globe.
Since the sauntering swarms of
George A. Romero's 1968 "Night of
the Living Dead," we've had fast-
running zombies, manic, red-eyed
zombies and - who could forget -
Nazi zombies. And after all these
memorable riffs on the flesh-eating
walking dead, the director of this
apocalyptic picture starring Brad
Pitt ("Killing Them Softly"), Marc
Forster ("Quantum Solace"), thin]
there remain new and excitit
ways to tell a good zombie story.
Forster believes he has a ne
cinematic vision, details of whi
he was willing to share through
conference call the Michigan Dai
joined.
"I looked at all the zombie mo
ies - especially 'Dawn of the Dea
and '28 Days Later' " Forster sai
"I knew I needed to create some-
thing that differentiates itself from
those movies. I saw what was cre-
ated before and then sort of cre-
ated my own language visually and
emotionally of where I wanted this
film to go to."
In effect, Forster had to decide
what his zombies could and
couldn't do, what their defining
features are and what makes them
compelling enough to warrant a
big-budget film - a zombie rule-
book of sorts.
"I knew that I wanted to set it all
as very real. I didn't want them to
be superhuman and just grounded
all biology," Forster said. "I was
involved in every step of the way
NT because it was important to the
foundation of my vision."
But these zombies don't move
as we've seen them before. They
aren't the jerking fiends of "28 Days
Later" or the gnawing, hungover
corpses of the Romero-breed.
There's a particularly memorable
ks sequence in "World War Z" 's trail-
ng er that Forster shed some light on:
"The human pyramid is a very
w frightening image. I haven't seen
ch it in any zombie movie, and as a
a filmmaker you're always trying to
ly create something new - which in
this case is a tsunami of zombies
v- coming towards you with no way to
d' escape them."
d. Forster further elaborated on
the inspiration of what he believes
to be a zombie innovation:
"As a child, I once witnessed
masses of people at a soccer stadi-
um in Europe as they were trying
to leave after the game, trampling
on top of each other," he said. "I sat
there watching it; frightened from
a child's point of view, realizing
how scary this could be."
Committing himself to this veri-
similitude, in creating a new cin-
ematic experience of this oft-seen
apocalyptic favorite, Forster also
understood another level of depth
should be added to his version of
zombiedom.
"I have often been fascinated by
zombies because they're, as you just
mentioned, a great metaphor, going
back to Romero in the '70s where
they were a take on consumerism,"
Forster said. "We're living in a time
of change and I think every time
the world's been through such a
transformation, zombies have been
very, very popular."
As many filmmakers and writ-
ers before him have done, Forster
opened his film up to the possibility
of the zombies carrying allegorical
weight.
"At some point our planet won't
be able to sustain the amount of
people there are on it," he said. "So
overpopulation becomes more and
more of a concern with fewer and
fewer resources, and if you're look-
ing all around in regards to politics
and economics, it seems like we are
all going after the last resources.
There is almost a mindlessness to it
and I thought that would be a great
metaphor."
Still, the pure spectacle of the
terror and the rush of action of
such an event wasn't lost on For-
ster: "World War Z" is still a sum-
mer blockbuster.
"The ultimate thing is that the
film is a ride from beginning to
end, but it also has another level
to it; which is what I really enjoy
about this film because movies that
accomplish both these things are
sometimes hard to come by - sto-
ries or scripts for summer block-
busters which can provide you
with those fun-ride experiences."
For many directors, that combi-
nation of crowd-pleasing and intel-
ligent storytelling proves difficult
to balance. Even Forster admits he
had to face the possibility of com-
promise.
"Sometimes when you're sur-
rounded by these massive scenes
and you're involved in this incred-
ible time pressure and money
pressure and so one, it can be a
challenge to stick to your vision."
Still, the director appears to be
satisfied with the result.
"I've been lucky enough to say
I've walked away at the end of the
films I've made with the thought,
'Yes my vision was there.' I think
that's the most important thing."
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michigandailycom
got 99 problems and they all case
files.
Why? Because I'm an intern.
More specifically,
a summer intern
at an intellectual
property law firm
in Chicago.
My first day I
walk in wearing
a J. Crew origami
dress in brilliant NATASHA
berry paired with ERTZBISCHOFF
a skinny black pat-
ent leather belt
and matching kitten heels. Very chic
business casual. I meet my workaholic
boss who has a little too much unruly
chest hair sticking out of his oxford.
He introduces me to all the partners,
paralegals, secretaries and even Tony
the mailroom guy. Everyone seems
very nice. Then he shows me my office.
It seems very nice. I think to myself I
was silly for being so nervous. Wrong-
O. I was in for quite a rude awakening.
The boss man gives me my
first assignment: to look through
6,003 trademark patents to see if there
are any that are similar to his
client's trademark.
Three hours later, after my fingers
have paper cuts that would make a
grown man cry, I receive my second
assignment: to print 1,046 e-mails
(including attachments) on a Dell
computer (a Dell desktop to be pre-
cise). The last time I used one of those
was in the fourth grade to gossip about
N*SYNC on AOL Instant Messenger.
Oh, the woes of doing grunt work
that you will later glorify on your resu-
me. By e-mail number 100, my brain is
comatose and I feel my University edu-
cation oozing out of my ears as I drool
on the keyboard pressing CTRL + P.
It's at this point you start to think
of some pretty inventive ways to kill
yourself - material that would be
good enough for an episode of "Law
and Order: Criminal Intent." But
then you think no, killing yourself
is counterproductive. Then another
thought slowly creeps in - maybe
flipping patties at Mickey D's wouldn't
be so bad. Then ... bam.
"NATASHA!"
A scream from your boss jerks you
out of your grease-filled delusions and
you realize that the McDonald's fire
truck red and banana yellow uniform
doesn't go well with your skin tone. So
you collect yourself, knock back a dou-
ble espresso shot and get back to filing.
But I'm being dramatic - it's not all
bad. There are some silver linings and
saving graces. One of which is what
I like to call your workplace guard-
ian angel, a god-sent mentor that will
take you under their tailored-suit
wing. Mine's name is Raquel and she's
a saint. With Lucy Liu looks and the
gumption of Hilary Clinton she's basi-
cally adorbs. Not only does she sit with
me at lunch so I don't look like Cady
from "Mean Girls" on her first day of
school, she also gives me tips on how
to not piss off my boss. Another perk is
that if you work hard enough, people,
important people, will start to notice
you're a go-getter. Then you start get-
ting invited to do things like sit in on
Federal Court cases with a partner.
Oh, the woes
of doing grunt
work.
But all silver linings aside, I still
couldn't help but wonder, "Why the
hell am I even doing this?" So I can
write, "handles outstanding bills and
attorneys fees, reports office actions
and files documents" on my resume?
So I can appease graduate schools?
The truth is as an intern you really
don't know what you're doing or why
you're doing it most of the time. But
that's the point. Interning teaches you
how to be resourceful, how to think
on your feet, how to network and
honestly, just how to think better. All
things that a university can't teach you
but are prerequisites for registering
for the ultimate course called Life.
So my advice to all the
unsuspecting bushy-tailed, wide-eyed
20-something-year-olds out there is
this: keep filing, keep working your ass
off and keep your chin up.
Be proud that you've landed the
ever-coveted internship position. You
may be on the bottom of the corporate
food chain and (to paraphrase more
Jay-Z) you're far from being god, but
you work goddamn hard. And that's
something to be proud of.
-Natasha Ertzbischoff can be
reached at nmertz@umich.edu.
marks a
departure
from our
youthful days
spent nurs-
ing wounded
animals back
to health just
in time for
big karate
matches
against the
rich team to
BEN
GLOGER
99 problems
or most University stu-
dents, I know the sum-
mer in between classes
save the town, getting the girl
and teaching the world about
the hazards of unchecked greed
and squandered love.
Instead, we busy ourselves
withvariousjobsandinternships,
beginning our slow dance with
that she-devil known as the real
world, listening to her sweet
nothings about uncooperative
Excel spreadsheets as she sinks
her claws deeper into our flesh at
the rate of commuter traffic - all
while she gobbles up graduating
seniors like Amanda Bynes does
crazy pills.
We can't escape the fact that
we are all aboard this one-way
public transportation destined
for the real-world and the only
stops planned are for equipment
failure. Thus, having a total of
one summer and two weeks of
internship experience under my
belt, and being held back a year,
I wanted to share the scariest,
most pant-leg-soiling facet of
real world life I've encountered
yet: our complete obsession with
perfection - and the dread of
failure it instills in us.
We live in a world consumed
with conformity, and when
any notion of perceived failure
knocks at our doorstep we cringe
in fear, quickly closing the blinds
as we mutter under our breath
about the neighborhood's loss
of character.
To accommodate this fear we
Learning to fail
saturate our lives with external
mediums of support. Self-help
books routinely top bestseller
lists, and even a cursory perusal
of the Internet yields just as
much degradation of human inti-
macy as it yields lists compiled to
guarantee a better you. We crave
change regardless of if it's truly
needed, quickly adding a prob-
lem to the 99 we already got in
order to accommodate any pro-
posed solution that seems able to
mitigate our dread of failure.
Yet are we truly so funda-
mentally flawed as to necessitate
such constant assistance? Do we
really need such an abundance of
knowledge advocating the "Five
Best Ways to Commit Genocide
on Stomach Fat"?
I think not - instead we are
more than capable individuals
who have simply become ter-
rified of experimentation and
potential failure. As a society we
can't accept ourselves, and are
thus always searching for the
next update, software or tidbit
of wisdom guaranteed to finally
add that extra thing we've man-
aged to live without for our entire
tenure as organisms, yet some-
how necessitate immediately.
This obsession is both self-
perpetuating and compounding
- it's in our unbridled
pursuit of perfection that we
continually render ourselves
imperfect, always searching for
problems to fix and inhibiting
true self-realization.
Our foundational ideology
touts that it's not your fault you
haven't written the next great
American novel, created that
successful startup or realized
your dream of seeing how many
nights in a row you can order
the late night special milkshake
before throwing it up only a few
hours later - you just didn't
have the right tools. In this
validation we accommodate
our imperfections, ignoring
reality and regulating the
Thursday, June 13, 2013
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
I responded in what I thought was the
most truthful, or least untruthful manner
by saying no.
-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, responding to criticism stemming from
remarks he made in March asserting that the NSA does not collect Americans' information.
blame elsewhere so that we may
continue our day satisfied yet
unchanged and still just as naive.
As a society
we can't accept
ourselves.
This standard simplifies our
dreams to finite quips, further
enhancing our self-dissatisfac-
tion and enabling our self-help
addiction like a heroin-addict-
ed fat kid locked in a heroin-
dealing candy shop. Ultimately,
if you read enough factoids or
books promising personal nir-
vana, you start to unconscious-
ly believe that nirvana is truly
achieved through such means.
In solving this dilemma, I
won't pretend to know that
The Cure is anything other
than a band, and that the only
Answer I know is , a phenom-
enal basketball player ruined
by ego. I also won't lampoon
you, faithful reader (Hi Mom),
with the irony of a self-help
article detailing the fallacies
of a self-help addicted society.
What I will say is that the most
introspective moments I've had
in life have been after colossal
failures. Times when I've acted
without thinking or regard for
expectations, left completely
leveled and with no choice but
to rebuild my Cheeto-encrusted
self, Lego piece by piece.
This summer, remember that
the entire purpose of falling is
to learn how we individually
get back up. For only then will
we rise up, capable of truly
defending Gotham - or maybe
just doing that thing with
the milkshake.
-BenGloger can be reached
at bgloger@umich.edu.
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