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 93
... political consciousness especially on an international stage . The intrusion of worldwide terrorism exported from ... political thrillers were domesticated and mostly based upon Watergate themes of paranoia , in the eighties political ...
... political thrillers were most worried about corruption and cover - up within America's domestic government and corporate institutions , in the eighties those films are most worried about the chaos of the wide world from which America ...
... Political voices used the Vietnam War to make points about the political choices open to the Reagan administration in Central America . Vietnam veterans used the war to gain political leverage and push a number of issues relevant to ...
... Political science and history departments also began creating Vietnam War courses . Na- tional literature conferences regularly scheduled sessions on the teaching and the scholarship of the Vietnam War . By the late eighties ...
... political or social or economic history , through the collecting , arranging , and interpreting of " perceived ... politicians ; the poor white of the grunts ; the black / chicano ; and , of course , the Viet- namese . This racial text ...
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 |