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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A Social History William J. Palmer. This book is dedicated to Maryann Contents Illustrations viii Preface ix 1 The Holograph of History.
... 7 The Feminist Farm Crisis and Other Neoconservative Feminist Texts 246 8 The Yuppie Texts 280 9 Film in the Holograph of New History 308 Notes 313 Index 325 Illustrations FOLLOWING PAGE 164 Casualties of War Braddock : Missing.
... holograph of history " is defined out of the theoretical pronouncements of Michel Foucault , Hayden White , and Dominick LaCapra . Despite this theoretical progress in the definition of the part film plays in history , The Films of the ...
... holograph of history , film history enters into the major debates and issues . Further , it defines the forms , the texts , that the discourse of film takes within that larger discourse of history . In most instances , film is a ...
... text . The goal is to achieve the paradigm that LaCapra recom- mends , the integration of history and criticism through the study of film texts . The Holograph of History F HISTORIANS of our generation were Preface XV.
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 |