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. |
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... past and our contemporary world . In that sense , then , as prime diffusers of a New Historicism , films do not simply portray history or diffuse historical information , they actually interpret history in the same way that literary ...
... past , particularly Vietnam and the resurrection of fifties issues such as detente with Russia and the nuclear threat , form another layer of the holograph . The new form of war , terrorism , the new racism , the new feminism , all form ...
... past history . A fascination for the 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 ...
... past eras of film history a critic concentrating upon films that displayed a sociohistorical consciousness rarely got the opportunity to analyze comedies . In the eighties , however , due mainly to the yuppie phenome- non , the satiric ...
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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 |