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 1-5 of 40
... Nuclear War Film Texts 179 6 From the " Evil Empire " to Glasnost 206 7 The Feminist Farm Crisis and Other Neoconservative Feminist Texts 246 8 The Yuppie Texts 280 9 Film in the Holograph of New History 308 Notes 313 Index 325 ...
... nuclear holocaust conscious : the fifties in the first glow of the atomic age , and the eighties in the final realization that the fate of the earth ( to purloin Jonathan Schell's title ) rested in , first , the " freezing " and , then ...
... nuclear holocaust , racism , yuppieness - than baseball , but at its core is that same point : that Hollywood creates a discourse in clearly defined texts that not only comment perceptively upon contemporary social history but actually ...
... nuclear threat , detente , are all issues that had a profound impact upon the formation of American social history during the decade . Some of these international issues were carry - over issues from both the fifties and the seventies ...
... nuclear reactor in 1981 , again signaled the dangers of the long - standing nuclear threat to the planet . These films actually predicted disastrous events such as the gas leak in Bhopal , India , that killed thirty - four hundred ...
Contents
The Vietnam War as Film Text | 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 |