The films of the eighties: a social history

Abstract

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, generate discussion about major events, issues, social trends of the eighties.Palmer defines the dialectic between film art social history, taking as his theoretical model the holograph of that originated from the New Historicist theories of Hayden White Dominick LaCapra. Combining the interests methodologies of social history film criticism, Palmer contends that film is a socially conscious interpreter 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, 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 critique history as well as present it.

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