The Films of the Eighties: A Social HistorySouthern Illinois University Press, 1993 - 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. |
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... Joker obliges . Joker's killing of the sniper at the end of Full Metal Jacket calls up the killing of the mistakenly wounded Vietnamese girl on the sampan by Captain Willard ( Martin Sheen ) in Apocalypse Now . Both scenes are capitu ...
... Joker mimics the words and voice of the one mythic figure whose image hangs over both World War II and the Vietnam War . Joker's confrontation with Sergeant Hartman is occasioned by his John Wayne imitation . Later , in act 2 in a ...
... Joker's Stars and Stripes press meetings , the theme of language is everywhere . The words of the war are being ... Joker is literally fighting a war of words , and his John Wayne imitation is the only relief he has . In the second ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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