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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... become a major political issue of the decade . Nineteen eighty - four was the Year of the Family Farm in film history . While thousands of real families were fighting to save real family farms , films like Places in the Heart , Country ...
... becomes a detour around texts and an excuse for not really reading them at all . It simultaneously avoids the claims ... becoming evident in the historical profession . " 15 Because of the chaotic nature of the postmodern world ...
... become deeply involved in the holograph of history . It draws its subject matters from history , but it has become much less concerned with epic documentation as in the sweeping war movies of the fifties , sixties , and seventies - such ...
... become a text for interpreting and often substantiating present action . In the eighties , history is being used to substantiate both the most important and the most trivial aspects of American culture . While the history of the Vietnam ...
... becoming news is the made - for - TV movie The Day After . The impact of that single " media event " so catalyzed public opinion that it influenced the Reagan government to pursue more serious nuclear arms control negotia- tions with ...
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 |