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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... 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 , and The River ...
... political , and historical issues in deference to a box - office censorship that stresses caution has been a film criticism cliche for seventy years . Actor Peter Boyle supports the Hollywood - as - ostrich cliche when he declares ...
... political instincts of writers and directors . To make a film about racism , Hollywood uses the buddy movie genre . " 35 In defending himself against naysayers like Gavin Smith , Parker is quite clear about the histori- cal and political ...
... politics consti- tute one full layer that overlays all of the others . The legacies of the past , particularly ... political conservatism , a growing cyni- cism toward America's moral stature in the world community that began with ...
... political puzzles of the future written in the critical act of reinterpreting and even reshaping past history . These films examined the self - reflexive need to reexamine our political consciousness toward the issue of nuclear war ...
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 |