The Films of the Eighties: A Social History

Front Cover
SIU Press, 1995 - 335 pages
0 Reviews
Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified

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

 

Results 1-5 of 65

Page xii
The period from 1975 ( immediately following the success of Jaws ) to the present has been a cycle in which the creative has been consistently overshadowed by the commercial . This materialist emphasis , xii i Preface.
Page xv
... 6 and what Dominick LaCapra designates the critical reading of texts ( including items usually referred to as documents ) in a manner that may itself affect both the conception of former ' reality and activity in the present .
Page 3
... always aware of itself as text and of the interrelation between its texts , subtexts , contexts , intertexts , can elevate the past into the participatory position of being a layer in the holograph of present history .
Page 5
... appear to be either an antiquarian , fleeing from the problems of the present into a purely personal past , or a kind of cultural necrophile , that is , one who finds in the dead and dying a value he can never find in the living .
Page 8
No film historian has his finger more firmly on the pulse of the film industry than James Monaco , and when he compares the social consciousness of the films of the eighties with those of the sixties the present shakes out pretty well ...

Where's the rest of this book?

What people are saying - Write a review

We haven't found any reviews in the usual places.

Selected pages

Contents

The Vietnam War as Film Text
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
Copyright

Other editions - View all

The Films of the Eighties: A Social History
William J. Palmer
Snippet view - 1993
The Films of the Eighties: A Social History
William J. Palmer
Snippet view - 1993

Common terms and phrases

action actually American society asks attempt become begins bomb called central characters City cold comic book confusion critical deal death death squad decade early eighties exploitation fact farm feminist fight film's final Fire girl give guilt happened Hill Hollywood human images involved ironic issue Jacket John Kerr-McGee kill later lives look major meaning metaphor military moral mother movie never nuclear Oliver Stone opening past Perhaps Platoon play political present problems Rambo Reagan reality represented rhetoric Russian says scene seems seventies social history soldiers speech story Street symbolic tells terrorism terrorist theme things trying turns ultimately Vietnam veteran Vietnam War Vietnam War films Vietnamese violence White whole wife woman women writes York young yuppie

About the author (1995)

William J. Palmer, a professor of English at Purdue University, is also a novelist whose Highwayman and Mr. Dickens was an Alternate Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Films of the Eighties
TitleThe Films of the Eighties: A Social History
AuthorWilliam J. Palmer
Editionillustrated, reprint
PublisherSIU Press, 1995
ISBN0809320290, 9780809320295
Length335 pages
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan