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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... movies . In fact , one notable trend of both the films of the seventies and of the eighties was their nostalgic ... movie over and over for all that money . I can't do that . " 2 But the eighties did do that to the tune of the ...
... movie business , not out of any altruistic or socially responsible motives , movies have always shown and explored either directly or metaphorically what was on the mind of the ticket- buying public . The Films of the Eighties : A ...
... movie tickets . It's a fact of life , and if we ever forget it , we'll be out of business . " 4 In the eighties , the producer , rather than the director or star actor , took over the media spotlight . Coverage of a major new film ...
... movies that have been made have almost no political content at all . " 31 The problem with this Hollywood - as - ostrich cliche is that it simply is not true . In the eighties , Hollywood offered a series of warnings against the tragedy ...
... movie genre : " Nobody is suggesting that the film's ideological / historical project is as blatantly revisionist as this , " Gavin Smith protests , " but it's [ Mississippi Burning ] a classic case of a film not being what it should be ...
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 |