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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... 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 was their nostalgic attraction to fifties and sixties events , issues , and social mores . James Greenberg describes how in the Reaganite - yuppie eighties . " Hollywood went for the Fifties where kids only wanted the right to ...
... eighties . Or whereas a prominent chapter in its predecessor defined the major villain of seventies film as a corporate entity , in this eighties film history the ubiquitous villain is the political terrorist . One of the central ...
... eighties society was acutely aware of that eye - mind relationship . " Film , " Graeme Turner writes , " is a social practice for its makers and its audience ; in its narratives and meanings we can locate evidence of the ways in which ...
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 |