The Films of the Eighties: A Social HistorySIU Press, 1995 - 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. |
From inside the book
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... White Designed by David Ford Production supervised by Natalia Nadraga 98 97 96 4 3 2 Library of Congress Cataloging - in - Publication Data Palmer , William J. , 1943– The films of the eighties : a social history / William J. Palmer . p ...
... White , and Dominick LaCapra . Despite this theoretical progress in the definition of the part film plays in history , The Films of the Eighties : A Social History is still very much a sequel , due mainly to the factual carry - over in ...
... White writes , " the worth of history would not have to be defended in the timid and ambivalent ways that are now used . " One conservative historian answers White with scorn by characterizing all attempts to vitalize dry - as - dust ...
... White is but one of the New Historicists intent upon this holo- graphic enhancement of historical discourse . His interdisciplinarily gen- erated holograph stresses the inclusion of new subject matters as the texts of historical ...
... White ) that " I continue to believe that historians have much to learn from disciplines such as literary criticism and philosophy where the debates over the nature of interpretation have been particularly lively . " 9 LaCapra is much ...
Contents
| 16 | |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
The Nuclear War Film Texts | 179 |
From the Evil Empire to Glasnost | 206 |
The Feminist Farm Crisis and Other Neoconservative | 246 |
The Yuppie Texts | 280 |
Film in the Holograph of New History | 308 |
Index | 325 |