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
... American land- scape as Levittown signaled the exodus from urban enclosure and the creation of a suburban middle ... society . " Taking its cue from Reaganomics , Hollywood opted for the safety of sequels , the belief that if ...
... American society are examined . The Vietnam War , terror- ism , the nuclear threat , detente , are all issues that had a profound impact upon the formation of American social history during the decade . Some of these international ...
... American films define the temper of American society in the time of their time . There is no better example of this manipulation of message by means of the meticulous choice of strategies of discourse than Alan Parker's Mississippi ...
... society history has become a text for interpreting and often substantiating present action . In the eighties , history is being used to substantiate both the most important and the most trivial aspects of American culture . While the ...
... society to its own historical interpretation . But no social historian of film can ever lose sight of the fact that ... American farmers . Martin Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ ( 1988 ) precipitated protests in the streets ...
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 |