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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... begins , Chris Taylor has learned the Vietnam War , has become proficient in death - dealing . He has learned to read the bush and see the attacking NVA in the night as he could not in the opening night ambush scene . He can find his ...
... begins in an opium den and ends there , but it also begins with the song " God Bless America " on the soundtrack and ends with the same ironic anthem . Thus the film announces immediately that it is about time , memory , and American ...
... begins with an omniscient narrator's voice - over recount- ing of the wars over oil which formed this wasteland world . A Boy and His Dog in its postapocalypse , Walt Disney style prefigures the world of the Mad Max trilogy in a wacky ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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