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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... history of both decades were strikingly similar and were explored and disseminated to a mass audience through the ... film actors of the eighties , said near mid - decade , " that's what Sylvester Stallone does , makes the same ...
... film and social history in the seventies , it remained so throughout the 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 ...
... Film images verify and reveal history , and 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 ...
... film history actually began with a British invasion . Epic inspirational films - first Chariots of Fire ( 1981 ) and then Gandhi ( 1982 ) — won the first two Academy Awards , while other literary films like The French Lieutenant's Woman ...
... film history's participation in social history . The first real formation of sociohistorical " texts " in eighties film history , the first gatherings of film texts around contemporary life texts , began between 1982 and 1984. In 1983-84 ...
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 |