So what film really captures the 1980s?

[jbob]

Actually, it's quite easy for a film (or any other literary or dramatic work) to tell you just as much about the time it was made as about the time period that it covers in its subject matter. Current political and social sensibilities often make their way into films (and novels and plays), even when the films are about totally different subjects or time periods. This can happen in subtle ways, or very obvious ones.

A perfect example, here in the US, is Arthur Miller's play (later made into a film) The Crucible. A story about circumstances surrounding the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, the play is also a critique of the anti-communist hysteria and McCarthyism of the 1950s. Similarly, last year's Good Night and Good Luck was, in my opinion, as much about contemporary American politics as it was about McCarthyism.

Or you can look at movies about the US Civil War. Birth of a Nation (1915), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Glory (1989) are all, in one way or another, about the war and the politics surrounding it, but they can each also tell us something (quite apart from cinematic issues such as B&W v. colour) about the sensibilities of the times in which they were made. All demonstrate vastly different attitudes towards the institution of slavery, and the role of blacks in American history.

You ask about Platoon. Well, like other Vietnam War movies, made before and since, this film reflects changing attitudes to the war in the United States, and reflects particular ideas about what the war means (or should mean) to the American people. Some Vietnam War films focus on heroic battle scenes, others on the perfidy of the NVA, others on the post-war issue of POWs allegedly still held in camps. Some focus on the impact of the war on returned soldiers and on American society (Deer Hunter, First Blood, Born on the Fourth of July), while others focus on class and authority and danger within the ranks during the war (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket).

All of these films can tell us something about the time they were made, and about the people who made them. In fact, i'd argue that they often tell us more about those things than they do about the war itself.

Wow, that's like crazy !!! I'd never have guessed that, like, art isn't, like, just about the story and stuff!!! You have well and truly opened my eyes !!

 

[Dissident Junk]

Mean Time.

Yes, I was going to say Leigh's Mean Time.

Alongside Rita, Sue and Bob Too, those are the two films that remind me of how I experienced the 80s at the time. I went to school with girls like Rita and Sue, and when I first saw the film, I felt quite sick - I was taken back to my school days, and reliving how terrified I was of those girls at the time.

And they were terrifying.

Mean Time is very similar. Even down to the NHS coats and syntax of the characters, it just is working class life in the 80s.

I'd also bring up Naked, by Mike Leigh, for the real 80s consumerism/yuppie/city boy attitude taken to an extreme.

 

[kyser_soze]

They might tell film buffs something, but your regular joe who watches movies without analysing the minute details would think of Platoon as a Vietnam war movie, not one that 'captures the 80's.

Thanks for the film studies lesson though

It's not just films that do this you know - taken between them, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and (yes) Rambo say a lot about how the US felt about itself at the time (that it was over the national trauma of vietnam and able to look at it in different ways.

For me:

Wargames - paranoia about the rise of computerisation AND nuclear war; hackers as a new form of folk hero

Ferris Bueller - selfishness has NEVER been such fun

Wall Street - no need to say anything really; took a real speech by one of the traders involved in THE corporate scandal of the 80s (the UK of which was the Guinness scandal) and replaced the original speech 'Greed is OK' with 'Greed is Good'

Top Gun - male homoeroticism in mainstream cinema - there's LOADS of 80s films that are dripping in gay imagery/allusions, but Top Gun manages it with more panache then the rest I think.

Altho I think that films like GGGR and American Psycho sum up the era better than any made within it.

Brit stuff...

Chariots of Fire represented that feeling among many that Britain was about to return to great things after the 70s, but with 'old values attached'

Rita, Sue & Bob Too

 

[rennie]

16 candles.

 

[mhendo]

Wow, that's like crazy !!! I'd never have guessed that, like, art isn't, like, just about the story and stuff!!! You have well and truly opened my eyes !!

Fuck off, dickhead.

Someone asked a question, and i answered it in a way that i thought might be informative and helpful.

If you already knew all that stuff, then good for you, but don't imply that i was being some sort of condescending arsehole for daring to answer a question.

Wanker.

 

[jbob]

Bollocks, you were being condescending, and you know it from that answer. Suggesting that people do not have any wider interpretation of art/lit/film than the utterly obvious is deeply condescending; your response was like a patronising primer by a first year undergrad in film studies. Part2's follow up (which was also taking the piss out of you, btw), that suggested that the 'regular joe' doesn't see anything beyond what is presented on the screen/paper/stage, was of the same kind of nonsense.

 

[mhendo]

Bollocks, you were being condescending, and you know it from that answer. Suggesting that people do not have any wider interpretation of art/lit/film than the utterly obvious is deeply condescending; your response was like a patronising primer by a first year undergrad in film studies. Part2's follow up (which was also taking the piss out of you, btw), that suggested that the 'regular joe' doesn't see anything beyond what is presented on the screen/paper/stage, was of the same kind of nonsense.

Fuck off, you ignorant piece of cuntswill.

I never suggested that "people do not have any wider interpretation of art/lit/film than the utterly obvious." In fact, if you had more than two fucking brain cells to rub together, you product of a syphilitic whore and a retarded monkey, you would understand that i was saying precisely the opposite. I was saying that viewers--not just me, but most viewers--can, and do, take more away from films than what the basic narrative tells them.

Part2 asked what i took to be a perfectly genuine question, to wit: "How can a film like Platoon (about the Vietnam war) say anything about the 80's?" Did you miss that question, retard?

Now, it's entirely possible that this was not a genuine question, that Part2 was taking the piss when he asked it. But i took it as a genuine question, and provided an answer specifically for Part2. If it was not a genuine question, if it was a piss-take, then the worst thing i'm guilty of is missing the irony in a text-based medium. And if it was a genuine question, then what's wrong with providing a genuine answer to it?

I also love your final sentence about Part2's response, which, you say, "suggested that the 'regular joe' doesn't see anything beyond what is presented on the screen/paper/stage," and which you call "the same kind of nonsense." You can't even keep your own argument straight, you recto-cranially inverted gobshite. I am, according to you, a condescending asshole for daring to explain that people can see deeper meaning in film; and then Part2 is apparently also out of order for daring to suggest that they can't.

Of course, i should forgive you. It's understandable that you took it as condescending. When you're clearly as thick as two short planks, and everyone treats you like the slow kid from down the street who still pisses his bed and wears his underwear on the outside, you probably get sensitive and resentful at any sign of basic intelligence and literacy. This is the only explanation i can think of for your attitude, and as such you are deserving of pity, not hate.

Now go play in the street.

 

[Griff]

C'mon people let's focus on Jaqueline Bisset.

Plus of course 'Class' which was one of those defining '80s' films.

 

[jbob]

Fuck off, you ignorant piece of cuntswill.

I never suggested that "people do not have any wider interpretation of art/lit/film than the utterly obvious." In fact, if you had more than two fucking brain cells to rub together, you product of a syphilitic whore and a retarded monkey, you would understand that i was saying precisely the opposite. I was saying that viewers--not just me, but most viewers--can, and do, take more away from films than what the basic narrative tells them.

Part2 asked what i took to be a perfectly genuine question, to wit: "How can a film like Platoon (about the Vietnam war) say anything about the 80's?" Did you miss that question, retard?

Now, it's entirely possible that this was not a genuine question, that Part2 was taking the piss when he asked it. But i took it as a genuine question, and provided an answer specifically for Part2. If it was not a genuine question, if it was a piss-take, then the worst thing i'm guilty of is missing the irony in a text-based medium. And if it was a genuine question, then what's wrong with providing a genuine answer to it?

I also love your final sentence about Part2's response, which, you say, "suggested that the 'regular joe' doesn't see anything beyond what is presented on the screen/paper/stage," and which you call "the same kind of nonsense." You can't even keep your own argument straight, you recto-cranially inverted gobshite. I am, according to you, a condescending asshole for daring to explain that people can see deeper meaning in film; and then Part2 is apparently also out of order for daring to suggest that they can't.

Of course, i should forgive you. It's understandable that you took it as condescending. When you're clearly as thick as two short planks, and everyone treats you like the slow kid from down the street who still pisses his bed and wears his underwear on the outside, you probably get sensitive and resentful at any sign of basic intelligence and literacy. This is the only explanation i can think of for your attitude, and as such you are deserving of pity, not hate.

Now go play in the street.

I'm not sure if your deserving of an answer or a labotomy, really. You sure are angry. Touched a nerve, eh? Chill, just 'cos your primer was so basic it assumed anyone who approached art, in whatever medium and intellectual context, is infinitely stupid and unable to place it in its historical context, doesn't mean you have to get offensive.

But I would suggest that you please improve your insults, they're really rather fourth rate and frothing at the mouth. It appears as though you're sickening for something (aside from intellect, knowledge and maturity, that is).

Part2's response was of exactly the same condescending vein that yours was, namely: 'those thickos can't understand art/lit/film, because they can't contextualise it'. My point is that I believe most people are capable of contextualising art/lit/film; only pseudo intellectual halfwits like yourself, who like to look down on the 'average joe' as being unable to to conceive of such concepts (which are, in actuality, fairly obvious), believe that people in general don't get it. You are deeply patronising, as your second bizarre response reinforces.

My mother and and the Macaque are very happy, thanks for asking.

 

[mhendo]

I'm not sure if your deserving of an answer or a labotomy, really. You sure are angry. Touched a nerve, eh? Chill, just 'cos your primer was so basic it assumed anyone who approached art, in whatever medium and intellectual context, is infinitely stupid and unable to place it in its historical context, doesn't mean you have to get offensive.

My primer, you moron, was basic because it was in response to a very basic question.

If someone asks "How can a film like Platoon (about the Vietnam war) say anything about the 80's?", then, in the absence of any evidence that the question itself was sarcastic, it needs to be answered at a basic level. Because the question itself strongly implies that person asking it might not have thought about such issues before. If someone who has never seen a car before asks you how it works, you don't start your explanation with an exegesis on linear motion physics or the principles of the internal combustion engine. You give a basic explanation.

My answer was intended for one person--the person who asked the question. I assumed that people who had no need for my explanation would simply glide past it and continue the discussion, rather than try to make an issue out of what was a perfectly innocent and innocuous contribution to this thread.

But I would suggest that you please improve your insults, they're really rather fourth rate and frothing at the mouth. It appears as though you're sickening for something (aside from intellect, knowledge and maturity, that is).

I'm not sickening for something; i'm sickening from something--a self-important asshole who has taken a rather unremarkable post of mine, a genuine attempt to answer what i thought was a genuine question, and blown it out of all proportion, suggesting that it makes me condescending. And in the process, that asshole has, himself, been more condescending than i ever thought possible.

Part2's response was of exactly the same condescending vein that yours was, namely: 'those thickos can't understand art/lit/film, because they can't contextualise it'. My point is that I believe most people are capable of contextualising art/lit/film; only pseudo intellectual halfwits like yourself, who like to look down on the 'average joe' as being unable to to conceive of such concepts (which are, in actuality, fairly obvious), believe that people in general don't get it. You are deeply patronising, as your second bizarre response reinforces.

You half-rate twit. You just don't get it, do you.

I never made any claims about what most people could understand until you made you accusation. And then, if you bothered to read my post, you would see that i do, in fact, believe that "most people are capable of contextualising art/lit/film." There it is, in black and white. You can claim the contrary all you like, but you are flat out wrong.

I don't look down on the "average joe" because i believe that the average joe (whatever the fuck that is) is just as capable as i am of getting this sort of thing out of film. But just because i believe that doesn't mean i'm going to ignore a question on the subject.

And you still haven't answered my earlier question: If Part2's question about Platoon was a genuine inquiry, what was wrong with providing an answer to it? Would you simply have ignored it?

And, as i said, if it was taking the piss, then i plead guilty to the heinous crime of failing to catch an incidence of irony in a text-based medium. And now i'm done with you. You can go and bask in your self-satisfaction.

 

[jbob]

pwned

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

pwned

as wittly comback go oscar whilde should rise from his grave and slap you... actully he probably wouldn't slap you but he'd say just the right kind of thing about you at all the right parties

 

[MightyAphrodite]

purple rain

mystic fuckin pizza

 

[Julie]

For what my opinion is worth, I didn't, and don't, find mhendo's post condescending. Rather, it was articulate, informative and an enjoyable read.

Oh, and before anyone says so: Yes, I support 'my fellow Australians' (John Howard is sooooooo inspiring)

 

[Yossarian]

I saw the director's 'narrative clarity is not a crime' cut of Donnie Darko for the first time this week and liked it a lot – and it reminded me a lot more of the ‘80s I remember than most films from the ‘80s – I guess there haven’t been all that many films made set in the ‘80s made by people who grew up then.

 

[rekil]

Watched 'Ferris Beuller's Day Off' last night for probably only the 2nd time since seeing it at the pictures when it came out and really enjoyed it.

It seemed to capture a time and a place in the 1980s where everything seemed good, and seemed to be on the verge of great change from the grim 1970s.

Personally I spent the 80's in a state of hopelessness and abject terror. Almost everything was unbelievably shit. My christian brothers run school was a delapidated prefab in a heroin infested area, there was the NI thing, 25% unemployment, the nuclear war threat, the Berlin wall, brutal right wing dictatorships in Latin America, and the tories at their most pathologically insane.

The films that meant most to me were:

This Is Spinal Tap.
Blade Runner.
War Games.
Suburbia.