The Films of the Eighties: A Social HistorySouthern Illinois University Press, 1993 - 335 pages In this remarkable sequel to his Films of the Seventies: A Social History, William J. Palmer examines more than three hundred films as texts that represent, revise, parody, comment upon, and generate discussion about major events, issues, and social trends of the eighties. Palmer defines the dialectic between film art and social history, taking as his theoretical model the "holograph of history" that originated from the New Historicist theories of Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra. Combining the interests and methodologies of social history and film criticism, Palmer contends that film is a socially conscious interpreter and commentator upon the issues of contemporary social history. In the eighties, such issues included the war in Vietnam, the preservation of the American farm, terrorism, nuclear holocaust, changes in Soviet-American relations, neoconservative feminism, and yuppies. Among the films Palmer examines are Platoon, The Killing Fields, The River, Out of Africa, Little Drummer Girl, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Silkwood, The Day After, Red Dawn, Moscow on the Hudson, Troop Beverly Hills, and Fatal Attraction. Utilizing the principles of New Historicism, Palmer demonstrates that film can analyze and critique history as well as present it. |
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... Full Metal Jacket fits into the Kubrick canon as tightly and precisely as a clip clicks into an M - 16 . J. Hoberman , writing about the Vietnam War films of the eighties , makes an excellent distinction : " But if Rambo : First Blood ...
... Full Metal Jacket has no real plot . It simply consists of disposable characters and motion . The motion , the dialogue , the images of Full Metal Jacket are about words in the same way that some aspects of Platoon are about confusion ...
... Full Metal Jacket the reality of death in Vietnam must somehow be distanced . As only the movies can do , the reality of war must somehow be romanticized . Joker's John Wayne imitation , the recur- ring tendency of all of the Vietnam ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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