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
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A Social History William J. Palmer. " Popular culture and official history share two vital aspects , " Thomas Myers writes , " the tendency to ignore the deeper , disquieting elements within the mythic history they write ; and the ...
A Social History William J. Palmer. The Holograph of History F HISTORIANS of our generation were willing to partici- pate actively in the general intellectual and artistic life of our time , " Hayden White writes , " the worth of history ...
A Social History William J. Palmer. hidden emplotments ( language patterns ) of both style and contextuality , the New Historicism's history holograph is layered in texts , subtexts , and stylistic emplotments . This history holograph is ...
A Social History William J. Palmer. events of modern life into a single coherent narrative pursuant to a single meaning : " it will be lived better if it has no single meaning but many different ones . " 8 Late - twentieth - century ...
A Social History William J. Palmer. the holograph . Popular film is an excellent example of a LaCaprian text that can both " supplement or rework ' reality " while also serving as a source open to textual , holographic interpretation ...
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 |