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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... seems to have no intrinsic meaning , strategic or otherwise . ) 27 In her essay on Hamburger Hill , Pauline Kael decides that " almost inevita- bly the hill comes to represent Vietnam . " Thus the nihilism that she sees in the film ...
... seems to be . In the mid - seventies , another metaphoric Vietnam War film , Chinatown , explored this same theme of historical paranoia.5 Pauline Kael seems to think that The Stunt Man is merely about " para- noia and moviemaking ...
... seems to know the answer to the question of whether the United States government should be interfering in countries ... seem able to escape the confusion , to order their world . By the embassy pool on his first day in Nicaragua ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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