The 1980s (pronounced "nineteen-eighties", shortened to "the '80s" or "the Eighties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1980, and ended on December 31, 1989.
The decade saw a dominance of conservatism and free market economics, and a socioeconomic change due to advances in technology and a worldwide move away from planned economies and towards laissez-faire capitalism compared to the 1970s. As economic deconstruction increased in the developed world, multiple multinational corporations associated with the manufacturing industry relocated into Thailand, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. Japan and West Germany saw large economic growth during this decade. The AIDS epidemic became recognized in the 1980s and has since killed an estimated 40.4 million people (). Global warming theory began to spread within the scientific and political community in the 1980s.
The final decade of the Cold War opened with the US-Soviet confrontation continuing largely without any interruption. Superpower tensions escalated rapidly as President Reagan scrapped the policy of détente and adopted a new, much more aggressive stance on the Soviet Union. The world came perilously close to nuclear war for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, but the second half of the decade saw a dramatic easing of superpower tensions and ultimately the total collapse of Soviet communism.
Developing countries across the world faced economic and social difficulties as they suffered from multiple debt crises in the 1980s, requiring many of these countries to apply for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Ethiopia witnessed widespread famine in the mid-1980s during the corrupt rule of Mengistu Haile Mariam, resulting in the country having to depend on foreign aid to provide food to its population and worldwide efforts to address and raise money to help Ethiopians, such as the Live Aid concert in 1985.
By 1986, nationalism was making a comeback in the Eastern Bloc, and the desire for democracy in socialist states, combined with economic recession, resulted in Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, which reduced Communist Party power, legalized dissent and sanctioned limited forms of capitalism such as joint ventures with companies from capitalist countries. After tension for most of the decade, by 1988 relations between the communist and capitalist blocs had improved significantly and the Soviet Union was increasingly unwilling to defend its governments in satellite states.
The 1980s was an era of tremendous population growth around the world, surpassing the 1970s and 1990s, and arguably being the largest in human history. During the 1980s, the world population grew from 4.4 to 5.3 billion people. There were approximately 1.33 billion births and 480 million deaths. Population growth was particularly rapid in a number of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian countries during this decade, with rates of natural increase close to or exceeding 4% annually. The 1980s saw the advent of the ongoing practice of sex-selective abortion in China and India as ultrasound technology permitted parents to selectively abort baby girls.
The 1980s saw great advances in genetic and digital technology. After years of animal experimentation since 1985, the first genetic modification of 10 adult human beings took place in May 1989, a gene tagging experiment which led to the first true gene therapy implementation in September 1990. The first "designer babies", a pair of female twins, were created in a laboratory in late 1989 and born in July 1990 after being sex-selected via the controversial assisted reproductive technology procedure preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Gestational surrogacy was first performed in 1985 with the first birth in 1986, making it possible for a woman to become a biological mother without experiencing pregnancy for the first time in history.
The global internet took shape in academia by the second half of the 1980s, as well as many other computer networks of both academic and commercial use such as USENET, Fidonet, and the Bulletin Board System. By 1989, the Internet and the networks linked to it were a global system with extensive transoceanic satellite links and nodes in most developed countries. Based on earlier work, from 1980 onwards Tim Berners Lee formalized the concept of the World Wide Web by 1989. Television viewing became commonplace in the Third World, with the number of TV sets in China and India increasing by 15 and 10 times respectively.
A boombox is a transistorized portable music player featuring one or two cassette tape players/recorders and AM/FM radio, generally with a carrying handle. Beginning in the mid 1990s, a CD player was often included. Sound is delivered through an amplifier and two or more integrated loudspeakers. A boombox is a device typically capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music (usually cassette tapes or CDs usually at a high volume). Many models are also capable of recording onto cassette tapes from radio and other sources. In the 1990s, some boomboxes were available with MiniDisc recorders and players. Designed for portability, boomboxes can be powered by batteries as well as by line current. The boombox was introduced to the American market during the late 1970s. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s, some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase. Some larger boomboxes even contained vertically mounted record turntables. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes.
The boombox quickly became associated with urban society in the United States, particularly African American and Latino youth. The wide use of boomboxes in urban communities led to the boombox being coined a "ghetto blaster". Some cities petitioned for the banning of boomboxes from public places, and over time, they became less acceptable on city streets. The boombox became closely linked to American hip hop culture and was instrumental in the rise of hip hop music. (Full article...)
... that Cathie Dunsford was unable to find many books about lesbianism in the 1970s, but by the 1980s had herself become a writer and anthologist of lesbian literature?
... that the educational computer games Designasaurus and UMS 1 together gained their publisher more than $5 million during 18 months in the 1980s?
Image 3Stage view of the Live Aid concert at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium in the United States in 1985. The concert was a major global international effort by musicians and activists to sponsor action to send aid to the people of Ethiopia who were suffering from a major famine. (from Portal:1980s/General images)
Image 10The world map of military alliances in 1980: NATO & Western allies, Warsaw Pact & other Soviet allies, Non-aligned countries, China and Albania (communist countries, but not aligned with USSR), ××× Armed resistance (from Portal:1980s/General images)
Image 19The Grateful Dead in 1980. Left to right: Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh. Not pictured: Brent Mydland. (from Portal:1980s/General images)
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Who's That Girl is a 1987 American screwball comedy film directed by James Foley, and written by Andrew Smith and Ken Finkleman. It stars Madonna and Griffin Dunne, and depicts the story of a street-smart girl who is falsely accused of murdering her boyfriend and is sent to jail. After release, she meets a man, supposed to make sure she gets on her bus back to Philadelphia, and convinces him to help her catch those responsible for her confinement. While searching for an embezzler, they fall in love with each other.
After her 1986 film Shanghai Surprise failed, Madonna decided to sign on to another comedy, titled Slammer, later renamed Who's That Girl. However, she had to convince both Warner Bros. and the film's producers that she was ready. Madonna enlisted her friend Foley to direct. Shooting began in New York in October 1986, and continued until March 1987. Production was halted during December due to snowfall. Madonna utilized the time to work on her next tour and the film's soundtrack. (Full article...)
The film started as a collaboration between Henson and Froud following their previous collaboration The Dark Crystal (1982). Terry Jones of Monty Python wrote the first draft of the film's script early in 1984, drawing on Froud's sketches for inspiration. Various other scriptwriters rewrote it and added to it, including Laura Phillips, Lucas, Dennis Lee, and Elaine May—although Jones received the film's sole screenwriting credit. It was shot from April to September 1985 on location in Upper Nyack, Piermont, and Haverstraw, New York, and at Elstree Studios and West Wycombe Park in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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Mouna Ragam (/maʊnərɑːɡəm/ transl. Silent Symphony) is a 1986 Indian Tamil-language romantic drama film written and directed by Mani Ratnam, and produced by G. Venkateswaran. The film stars Mohan and Revathi, with Karthik in a guest appearance. V. K. Ramasamy, Ra. Sankaran, Bhaskar, Kanchana, Vani, Kalaiselvi and Sonia play supporting roles. It narrates the life of Divya (Revathi), a free-spirited college girl who is forced into an arranged marriage with Chandrakumar (Mohan) by her father (Sankaran). But, she still lives in the memory of her past lover Manohar (Karthik). The story follows Divya's inner conflict between holding onto her past and coming to terms with the present.
The film's development began when Ratnam began writing a short story tiled "Divya" with no cinematic plans until he finished it. Since production on his directorial debut Pallavi Anu Pallavi (1983) was delayed, he took a break for a month and developed "Divya" into a film script, which would eventually be renamed Mouna Ragam. Although Ratnam began work on the script during Pallavi Anu Pallavi, it languished in development hell and ended up becoming his fifth film. Mouna Ragam was the first film produced by Venkateswaran's Sujatha Films, and was shot primarily in Madras, with additional filming taking place in Delhi and Agra. The music was composed by Ilaiyaraaja, with lyrics by Vaali. P. C. Sreeram was the cinematographer, and the art director was Thota Tharani. The film was edited by B. Lenin and V. T. Vijayan. (Full article...)
Fanny and Alexander (Swedish: Fanny och Alexander) is a 1982 period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the children's father (Allan Edwall), their mother (Ewa Fröling) remarries a prominent bishop (Jan Malmsjö) who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.
Bergman intended Fanny and Alexander to be his final picture before retiring, and his script is semi-autobiographical. The characters Alexander, Fanny and stepfather Edvard are based on himself, his sister Margareta and his father Erik Bergman, respectively. Many of the scenes were filmed on location in Uppsala. The documentary film The Making of Fanny and Alexander was made simultaneously with the feature and chronicles its production. (Full article...)
The film was first completed in 1975 as a live-action/animated film, in which only the main characters were animated and the rest were portrayed by live actors, but the film's release was pushed back, and later postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. claimed that this version of the film was unsatisfactory; concerns about the backlash against Coonskin were also cited. (Full article...)
The Fabulous Baker Boys was Kloves's directorial debut and second screenplay. He conceived the story based on Ferrante & Teicher, a piano duo he had grown up watching perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, which inspired him to write a film about working class musicians who are also siblings. Determined to direct the film himself, Kloves sold the script to producers Paula Weinstein and Mark Rosenberg. It was subsequently rotated among several production companies before it was ultimately obtained by 20th Century Fox in 1986. Pfeiffer underwent several months of voice training to perform all of her character's songs, which largely consist of jazz and pop standards. While both Bridges brothers play their instruments on camera, their audio was dubbed by the film's composer, Dave Grusin, and musician John F. Hammond, respectively. Although primarily set in Seattle, Washington, the film was shot mostly in Los Angeles, California, from December 1988 to March 1989. (Full article...)
It premiered on the CBC in 1984 and was later broadcast on American Playhouse in 1985. The film received mixed reception from critics. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank was featured in the eighth-season finale episode of the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1997. (Full article...)
Nostos: The Return (Italian: Nostos: Il ritorno) is a 1989 Italian adventuredrama film directed by Franco Piavoli, starring Luigi Mezzanotte [it] and Branca De Camargo. Drawing from Homer's Odyssey, the film depicts Odysseus' homeward journey across the Mediterranean Sea following the Trojan War, and his struggles against natural obstacles and inner torments. The film relies on visual storytelling and the portrayal of nature; dialogue is minimal, without subtitles, and spoken in an imaginary Mediterranean language. Nostos: The Return explores themes of homecoming, the memory of war, time, and man's relationship with nature.
Piavoli began to make films in the 1950s, but Nostos: The Return was his first feature-length fiction film. Envisioning it as "symphonic" as opposed to "theatrical" cinema, Piavoli was in control of most of the creative process and a cast with little film experience. The processes of preparing, filming, and editing the project each took one year to complete. (Full article...)
Principal photography took place in Mumbai and various locations in Ooty. The film features a score and soundtrack composed by Raamlaxman, while Asad Bhopali wrote the lyrics. Maine Pyar Kiya considered to be one of the most iconic and loved films of the Khan and became a cult favorite from its songs, dialogues, and chemistry of the Khan and Bhagyashree. The film also established the careers of the supporting cast including Mohnish Bahl and Laxmikant Berde. (Full article...)
The film's title is taken from a short story in Ian Fleming's 1966 short story collection Octopussy and The Living Daylights, although the film's plot is mostly original. It does, however, contain a scene adapted from the Fleming short story "The Property of a Lady" (included in 1967 and later editions of Octopussy and The Living Daylights). The events of the short story "Octopussy" form part of the title character's background and are recounted by her in the film. (Full article...)
An expensive film to produce, Granpa is hand-illustrated with coloured pencil, imitating Burningham's style in the book. It was directed by Dianne Jackson, who had previously adapted The Snowman by Raymond Briggs (1978), a wordless picture book, as an exceptionally successful family-oriented animated film (1982). Howard Blake, who wrote the music for The Snowman, wrote the music and the script for Granpa, which is referred to as an "animated children's opera". The voices of Granpa and Emily are by Peter Ustinov and Emily Osborne. (Full article...)
Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week. Filming began in September 1985 and finished in November, featuring many Chicago landmarks including the Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, and the Art Institute of Chicago. The film was Hughes's love letter to Chicago: "I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture and landscape, but the spirit." (Full article...)
The film focuses on a now-widowed Ellen Brody (Gary) and her conviction that a great white shark is seeking revenge on her family, particularly when it kills her youngest son, and follows her to the Bahamas. (Full article...)
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