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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... eighties . The films of the eighties , however , were simply mirroring the fact that the decade itself , in its social history , was a sequel . Call it The Fifties II . Billy Joel's popular song of 1989 , " We Didn't Start the Fire ...
... eighties events kept the Vietnam War alive , not as a social issue but as a metaissue , a cautionary metaphor from the seventies for other eighties issues . That unique set of events that kept both America and the eighties attuned to ...
... eighties contem- poraneity of Stone's and DePalma's Scarface , still Once Upon a Time in America explores , subtextually and metaphorically , as did Chinatown for the seventies , the eighties theme of narco - terrorism as commercial ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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