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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... Street appropriate for her assignations with Lord Bolbeck . The film's themes are both political and personal simultaneously . Loren Slaughter represents America selling itself to Arab interests like a prostitute while the rest of the ...
... Street Smart ( 1987 ) exam- ined the loss of ethics of a yuppie print journalist . In all three , the pressure , the competition , and the frantic pace of the news - gathering profession force the characters caught in this vortex to ...
... Street is a constant rollercoaster of buying and selling . The film's most prominent icons are cellular phones and ... Street corporate raiders . To use the metaphoric language of actual corporate raiding , the plot of Wall Street is ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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