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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... wife of Wilkes ( Fred Ward ) , the tunnel rat , speaks for her husband : WIFE : Look , you've got no right to be here . It's taken me ten years to get that war out of his head . RHODES : Looks to me like it's still in his head pretty ...
... wife of an American medical doctor is kidnapped by terrorists at a convention in Paris , the American embassy refuses to even acknowledge her disap- pearance and the doctor must brave the Paris underworld on his own . Perhaps the most ...
... wife , Ann ( Jane Kaczmarek ) , is attractive , intelligent , and a wonderful mother . Yet when Frank meets Molly ( Meryl Streep ) , a housewife like his wife , on a commuter train and later in a bookstore , that same competition is ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 16 |
The Coming Home Films | 61 |
The Terrorism Film Texts | 114 |
Copyright | |
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