Film

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema)

American Cinema of the 1980s: Themes and Variations (Screen Decades: American Culture/American Cinema)

Stephen Prince

Language: English

Pages: 280

ISBN: 0813540348

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


During the 1980s, American cinema underwent enormous transformations. Blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and The Empire Strikes Back grabbed huge revenues for the studios. At the same time, the growth of home video led to new and creative opportunities for independent film production, resulting in many of the decade's best films. Both large- and small-scale filmmakers responded to the social, political, and cultural conditions of the time. The two-term presidency of Ronald Reagan spawned a new Cold War with the Soviet Union, which Hollywood film both embraced and critiqued. Also during this time, Hollywood launched a long-awaited cycle of films about the Vietnam War, exploring its impact both at home and abroad. But science fiction remained the era's most popular genre, ranging from upbeat fantasies to dark, dystopic visions.

Bringing together original essays by ten respected scholars in the field, American Cinema of the 1980s examines the films that marked the decade, including Ordinary People, Body Heat, Blade Runner, Zelig, Platoon, Top Gun, Aliens, Blue Velvet, Robocop, Fatal Attraction, Die Hard, Batman, and sex, lies & videotape.

Film Technique And Film Acting - The Cinema Writings Of V.I. Pudovkin (Memorial Edition)

The Inward Urge: 1960s Science Fiction and Imperialism

Conversations with the Great Moviemakers of Hollywood's Golden Age at the American Film Institute

Lindsay Anderson: Cinema Authorship (British Film Makers)

Canyon Cinema: The Life and Times of an Independent Film Distributor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

home video was outpacing that from theatrical exhibition. In 1987, home video revenues were $7.5 billion compared with a $4 billion box office. In 1989, the differential increased to over $11 billion for video against a $5 billion box office (International 391). This relationship has persisted ever since; the theatrical market was never again the primary one for the Hollywood industry. But contrary to predictions at the time, home video did not kill theaters. Instead, there was a boom in theater

aiding government forces that operated death squads in El Salvador, while also sustaining right-wing terrorist units, known as “contras,” to overthrow the legitimately elected socialistoriented Sandinistas in Nicaragua. El Norte indirectly represents the effect of Reagan’s policies in its depiction of the murder of a Guatemalan peasant, killed for his association with a labor organization, whose children are forced to flee to the United States. A sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 (1968), 2010

streets, she tries to explain to him what life in the real world is like: laid-off men (like Monk) hanging about the streets gambling or drinking to escape their dejection; soup kitchens for the hungry; the preciousness of even the worst job. In the real world, there is no freedom without economic freedom. Allen recognizes the drudgery of the modern wage slave in the capitalist wasteland of the 1930s, but he also sees a certain amount of complicity in the workers’ passive acceptance of their

central to the style of startling juxtaposition. The songs in the film—“Blue Velvet,” “In Dreams,” and “Mysteries of Love”—are indicative. Lynch has explained that Bobby Vinton’s 1963 recording of “Blue Velvet” was one of the key inspirations for the film (Rodley 134). The pop song evokes the closing of the 1950s, after which the turmoil of the 1960s changed America profoundly. The song becomes a marker for the transformation of American innocence to a desperate, at times beleaguered,

execute its political opponents. Jack Lemmon plays an American father searching for his son amid the repression, learning finally that the boy was among those killed with U.S. complicity. Another cycle of films offered a sustained critique of Reagan’s economic policies, which rewarded the wealthy and the corporate sector while cutting the social safety net from the poor and the inner cities. In this case, the critique was not as overt as in the Central America films because it was typically

Download sample

Download