The Films of the Eighties: A Social HistoryIn 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
... 206 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.
The split - level yuppie housing developments of the eighties realized the dark side of that suburban dream as all of the problems of the cities ( homelessness , drugs , disease , crime , racism ) seemed to be moving outward and ...
Issues such as the farm crisis , the new racism , and the yuppie phenomenon exhibit the tenacious contemporaneity of Hollywood in its taking of the pulse of American society . These sections are more specifi- cally located in the ...
... and The Cotton Club sagas failed miserably , other sagas - Platoon , Born on the Fourth of July — succeeded in stimulating audience interest . The eighties , then , was a decade of commercial performance , the yuppie decade in which ...
Of the domestic issues of the decade , eighties film history developed an ongoing fascination for the intricacies and ironies of the yuppie lifestyle . " Popular culture and official history share two vital aspects xiv Preface.
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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 |