The Films of the Eighties: A Social HistorySIU Press, 1995 - 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 6-10 of 53
... Reagan , the movies that have been made have almost no political content at all . " 31 The problem with this Hollywood - as - ostrich cliche is that it simply is not true . In the eighties , Hollywood offered a series of warnings ...
... Reagan - era America , Parker set out to deliver a potent message about racism and white supremacist violence . He chose , however , not to present that film's message from a black point of view . His was a choice quite similar to that ...
... Reagan - era for- eign policy in Central America and the Middle East , a hair conditioner bottle's label declares that " herbal history traces the use of Chamomile to bring out highlights . " The fates of nations and the fates of hair ...
... Reagan government to pursue more serious nuclear arms control negotia- tions with Russia . In 1983 , three films - Places in the Heart , Country , The River - made news in their sharp criticism of the government's abandon- ment of the ...
... Reagan administration and continue of a piece throughout that decade . The victory of the Reagan agenda changed everything in Ameri- ca and by as early as 1982 had also changed the very nature of Hollywood films . Marc Cooper , in an ...
Contents
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 |