Steel City needs quintessential film

In light of the impending Super Bowl, it’s a safe bet many Pittsburghers will take to… In light of the impending Super Bowl, it’s a safe bet many Pittsburghers will take to invoking, for their Packers-fan brethren, our region’s considerable historical and cultural contributions. But unlike, say, New Yorkers, Pittsburgh locals might find they’re at a loss when it comes to name-dropping their city’s defining film.

Allow me, then, to set the record straight.

A few weeks ago, after critics at New York Magazine were asked to name what they considered to be the quintessential New York novel, song, artwork and film — for the record, “Dog Day Afternoon” won the latter title — I was inspired to reach my own verdict on a movie that epitomized a certain city. Only this time, that city would be Pittsburgh.

Of course, I can’t purport to have seen all the films shot in the Steel City. The John Wayne drama “Pittsburgh” (1942), for instance, has yet eluded me. I can, however, claim fairly comprehensive experience with the classics. Accordingly, the finalists for the title of Ultimate Pittsburgh Movie, like those of New York Magazine’s, are a smattering of the usual suspects — “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “The Deer Hunter” (1978) and “Dawn of the Dead” (1978) — supplemented by a few less-acclaimed gems: “Wonder Boys” (2000) and “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” (2008).

Conspicuously absent on this list are films that were shot in Pittsburgh (“Dogma,” “The Silence of the Lambs”), but don’t attribute the location as such. Also conspicuously absent are films that look, quite frankly, too awful — “The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh,” for instance — to merit my attention.

As for my means of evaluating the films, the finalists needed to meet two sets of criteria in order to be deemed the Ultimate Pittsburgh Movie: First, they needed to be intrinsically excellent and second, they needed to somehow encapsulate the Pittsburgh spirit. Ideally, the winner would be both the finest film on the list and the most Pittsburgh-y.

At first glance, “The Deer Hunter” would seem to best fulfill the latter criteria. After all, whereas the movie’s non-Vietnam sequences are centered mostly in a town that’s actually 25 minutes south of Pittsburgh, you’d be hard pressed to find characters more ensconced in the city’s culture: De Niro and company drink Rolling Rock, watch the Steelers, work in a steel mill and, of course, hunt deer. As an ethnography of Western Pennsylvania, Michael Cimino’s Oscar-winning epic is unmatched.

Nevertheless, it’s somewhat disingenuous to label “The Deer Hunter” a film about Pittsburgh: Quite clearly, it’s a film about Vietnam and its psychological aftermath. Accordingly,the most powerful moments in the movie — most notably the Russian roulette sequences — are worlds removed from our beloved Steel City. The characters’ wholesome hometown merely serves as a foil for the jungle. In reality, “The Deer Hunter” could have been filmed in nearly any small American municipality.

“Dawn of the Dead,” although set mostly in the nearby Monroeville Mall, feels similarly nonregional: The film’s blistering critique of consumerism is directed invariably at the entire nation. Tellingly, the word “Pittsburgh” is never even mentioned.

Ultimately I was led to bestow the title on George Romero’s earlier and more groundbreaking film, “Night of the Living Dead” (1968). Although its racial commentary — which comes on particularly strong during the final scene — is, again, meant for a national audience, “Living Dead” is nonetheless a movie with an inextricably Western Pennsylvania look and feel. Set mostly in a farmhouse and populated by a host of pragmatic locals, Romero’s debut takes pains to incorporate the region’s geography — references to Pittsburgh and surrounding counties are frequent — and mentality.

More importantly, “Night of the Living Dead” exemplifies the scrappy ingenuity Pittsburghers believe is ingrained in their character. With an estimated budget of $114,000, Romero popularized an entire genre of horror film — one whose potential has yet to be exhausted. When looking for a filmic equivalent to Steel City resourcefulness, “Night of the Living Dead” is near impossible to top.

Locals, feel free to disagree with me — this is, after all, a purely subjective judgment. This much, however, is inarguable: Before Pittsburgh had a single Super Bowl ring to its name, it still had Romero to boast about.