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 97
... Vietnam War . " 36 Parker goes on to explain that the original script of Mississippi Burning " didn't quite have the political backbone that I wanted .... I think the subtext of the film is there now . . . . Without giving them an ...
... films are constructed out of a limited number of conventional mass modes of discourse ( plots ) , whereas the subtexts of films ... Vietnam War constantly comments upon Reagan - era for- eign policy in Central America and the Middle East , a ...
... Vietnam War , its meaning and aftermath , especially exemplified this eighties self - reflexiveness . The Vietnam War became the dominant metaphor for postmodernist confusion , paranoia , and aliena- tion within both eighties society and ...
... film texts . But in the eighties , films are actually generating texts of social history . Films dealing with the Vietnam War and postwar issues , for example , function as a New Historicist interpretation of a sociohistorical text ...
A Social History William J. Palmer. 2 The Vietnam War as Film Text N THE LATE seventies , the Vietnam War films , specifi- cally Coming Home , The Deer Hunter , Go Tell the Spartans , and Apocalypse Now , served as barometers that ...
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 |