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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... Hamburger Hill , therefore , is caught between two types of nothingness and can only choose action , going up that hill one more time - some choice ! Hamburger Hill is different from Platoon and Full Metal Jacket in that it is fact ...
... Hamburger Hill is set in the hill country , where the enemy controls the high ground and the American soldiers must fight not only themselves and the enemy , as in Platoon and Full Metal Jacket , but also the terrain and the elements ...
... Hamburger Hill , the villains of the piece are not the enemy in their bunkers at the top of the hill raining down death , but the American society that has hung them out here by themselves to die . What John Irvin's Hamburger Hill does ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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