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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... women's issue films of the eighties . This feminist text had been referenced earlier in the decade in existential ... women ( mothers and homemak- ers ) , to blue - collar working women . This neoconservative shift in feminist film ...
... women who become their victims . In order to gain revenge against a former lover , the Marquise commissions Valmont to deflower the former lover's new love . To prove his power of seduction , Valmont vows to seduce the most virtuous woman ...
... women and religious working - class women and the move- ment's stance on abortion . Two films , released within weeks of one another in 1988 , looked closely at the obstacles that society places between a woman's maintaining of her own ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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