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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-3 of 60
... present , Once Upon a Time in America is keyed , in its focus upon the jockeying for illegal liquor territories via violence , to the contextuality of the eighties . Like Coppola's Godfather , it denotes how a prior time represents the ...
... present danger for both the environment and people of proximity to radioactive nuclear materials to the possibility of illegal nuclear arms proliferation . The primary text theme of Silkwood is straightforwardly blue - collar . Before ...
... present danger of an all - out nuclear war between the United States and Russia . The political posturing of the decade between these two superpowers was predicated upon the realities of first strike capability and space - based nuclear ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown