Constructing a Madman: Lee Harvey Oswald’s Screen Life
“In our attempt to fill in the gaps of the Oswald character, we recast him again and again, hoping that the latest iteration will reveal a previously hidden angle.”
D.M. Palmer
Don’t Expect Roses: Growth, Transformation and Illusion in Tony Blair’s Britain
“The ghosts of the divisive past that New Labour set out to consign to history’s trash heap reared their heads, presaging a politics that would cast off the Blairite technocratic order.”
Follow That Dream: Generation X and Addiction Cinema
“In a climate of secular uncertainty, the addict’s commitment to something larger took on an almost religious significance; the user was transformed into an intrepid traveler.”
The Art of Hardly Trying: Dean Martin’s 60s Swing
“As the 70s dawned, survival for Dean Martin became a matter of staying on the horse and waiting for the culture to loop back in his favor, to mature into the venerated relic who had come direct from the bar.”
Choose Death: Gregg Araki’s Apocalyptic 90s
“Gregg Araki’s 90s films feel like prophecies of a cataclysm that never happened.”
Mystical Ennui: Peter Cook at a Distance
“Peter Cook was never able to bridge the distance between his personal world and his many creations, and one gets the impression that he derived a certain satisfaction from keeping people guessing.”
The Irresistible Bulldozer: Judy Holliday’s Brief Comic Swing
“Holliday’s persona is one of shrewdness in the face of unrelenting condescension; she perfected the art of playing the outwardly ditzy blonde who lulls those around her into taking her lightly.”
Visions of the Future from 1995: Touching with Synthetic Hands
Visions of the Future from 1995: Touching with Synthetic Hands by D.M. Palmer: “These films posited that to dream in public, to build new worlds on this freshly privatized terrain, was to risk new and previously inconceivable forms of personal ruin.”
Visions of the Future from 1995: I Am the Law
“The capacity to dehumanize has always been present in cinema; to witness the vanquishing of enemies on the screen has served a cathartic function for every society in which cinema has taken hold.”
Visions of the Future from 1995: The World Is Screwed
“‘Waterworld,’ ’12 Monkeys’ and ‘Tank Girl’ posit that when a civilization collapses, many of its customs will be upheld through authoritarian means…”
The Only Thing Real: Meaning and Maturity in Post-9/11 Cinema
“9/11 was a psychic wound that fostered a new relation to the world, and those who grew up in its aftermath struggled to digest its lessons; some fell back onto intransigence, while others internalized the damage.”
Recovery, Survival and Extinction: Abel Ferrara’s Exile Cycle
“Few artists have dreamt more boldly and defiantly in their exile than Ferrara; he has faced up to the dark towers of commerce and coercion, the systemic violence that is rationalized and sanctioned to peak efficiency by the prevailing conditions.”
The World Is Cold: Fallen Idols and False Prophets in Post-Crash America
“The year 2012 was the first in which cinema could adequately assess the material and psychological toll of the crash. The box office tells its own story: audiences were looking for saviors…”
Having It All: The Career Woman Takes Over
D.M. Palmer on the career women of ‘9 to 5’ (1980), ‘Baby Boom’ (1987), ‘Big Business’ (1988), ‘Working Girl’ (1988) and ‘Disclosure’ (1994).
The American Horizon: Working Life in the New Hollywood
“What is so strange about the New Hollywood renaissance of the 70s is that it took place at a time of acute crisis for the business. It was a signal of the industry’s weakness that these cracks in the veneer were not only permitted but encouraged…”
Nine-to-Five Fellows: The Company Man Comes Home
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
There Is No Try: Documenting the Silicon Valley Mindset
There Is No Try: Documenting the Silicon Valley Mindset | D.M. Palmer on ‘The Inventor, ‘Fyre,’ ‘Fyre Fraud’ and ‘WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn’
Must Write a Happy Ending: The Posthumous Dennis Potter
“Dennis Potter left us with one of the most ambitious and meaningful pieces of British television, bridging commercial and public broadcasting to address the state of the nation and the fate of the artist with his customary irreverence and accessibility.”
No Future for You: The Cinematic Image of 70s Britain
“The 70s were a tumultuous and often bleak decade for the British film industry, and this pessimism bled into its output.”
Reality Is a Deadly Place: LSD Cinema’s Short and Strange Trip
“Drug culture and social upheaval became inextricable on the screen in the 60s; it was a belated recognition on the part of the industry’s tastemakers that American cinema’s scrupulously maintained state of grace was no longer sustainable…”