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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... portrayal of the Vietnam War veteran in the movies evolved into something completely different in the early ... portrayed with different degrees of malaise . One thing , however , can be said for TV as opposed to the movies . TV ...
... portrayal of the Chinese gangster community in New York . A similar outcry had been raised in 1978 about Cimino's brutally negative portrayal of the Vietnamese in The Deer Hunter . Year of the Dragon followed in the footsteps of Rambo ...
... portrayed in Coppola's The God- father , Part II ( 1974 ) to the drug wars and gang wars of the eighties . It is a commercial text that , like the control text of death squad governments , is intimidative rather than symbolic . What all ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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