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.
In 1968, three of the genre's most famous pioneers – British bands Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple – were founded. Though they came to attract wide audiences, they were often derided by critics. Several American bands modified heavy metal into more accessible forms during the 1970s: the raw, sleazy sound and shock rock of Alice Cooper and Kiss; the blues-rooted rock of Aerosmith; and the flashy guitar leads and party rock of Van Halen. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence, while Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Saxon followed in a similar vein. By the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers". The lyrics of some metal genres became associated with aggression and machismo, an issue that has at times led to accusations of misogyny. (Full article...)
Born in Sichuan near the end of the Qing dynasty, Deng went to France in 1921 on a work-study program that placed students in factory jobs; seeing working conditions he became attracted to the theories of Vladimir Lenin, and in 1924 he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In early 1926, Deng travelled to Moscow to study political science, becoming a commissar for the Red Army upon his return to China. Near the end of 1929, Deng led local Red Army uprisings in Guangxi. In 1931, he was demoted within because of his support for Mao, but was again promoted during the Zunyi Conference. Deng was an important figure throughout the Chinese Civil War (1927–1949), including during the Long March (1934–1935) and in fighting against the Japanese (1937–1945). He, Liu Bocheng and Chen Yi led the newly formed People's Liberation Army (PLA) into the former Kuomintang capital of Nanjing during the final stretch of the civil war. (Full article...)
Image 7The 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)
Image 17Stage 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 20The 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)
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 film was conceived by Neumeier while working on the set of Blade Runner (1982), and he developed the idea with Miner. Their script was purchased in early 1985 by producer Jon Davison on behalf of Orion Pictures. Finding a director proved difficult; Verhoeven dismissed the script twice because he did not understand its satirical content, until he was convinced of its value by his wife. Filming took place between August and October 1986, mainly in Dallas, Texas. Rob Bottin led the special-effects team in creating practical effects, violent gore and the RoboCop costume. (Full article...)
Meena Panchu Arunachalam produced Guru Sishyan under the production company P. A. Art Productions. The screenplay was written by her husband Panchu Arunachalam. The cinematography was handled by T. S. Vinayagam, the editing was by R. Vittal and C. Lancy, and the art direction was by B. Chalam. The film is Gautami's debut role in Tamil cinema, and the first film in which Rajinikanth and Prabhu co-starred. Filming took place primarily in Mysore and Chennai, and was completed in 25 days. (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) though she still lives with the memory of her deceased lover Manohar (Karthik). The story follows Divya's inner conflict between holding on to 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...)
Both are the adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s 1963 two-part novel The Water of the Hills. Berri’s Jean de Florette is the first adaptation of the first part, while the second had previously been filmed by Pagnol himself in 1952. The story takes place in rural Provence in the 1920s, where two local farmers plot to trick a newcomer out of his newly inherited property. The film starred three of France's most prominent actors – Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil, who won a BAFTA award for his performance, and Yves Montand in one of his last roles. (Full article...)
White Dog is a 1982 American dramahorror film, which Samuel Fuller directed from a screenplay he and Curtis Hanson had dramatized, which, in turn, they based on Romain Gary's 1970 novel of the same title. The film depicts the struggle of a dog trainer named Keys (Paul Winfield), who is black, trying to retrain a stray dog found by a young actress (Kristy McNichol), that is a "white dog"—a dog trained to make vicious attacks upon, and to kill, any black person. Fuller uses the film as a platform to deliver a message against racism as it examines the question of whether racism is a treatable problem or an incurable condition.
The film's theatrical release was suppressed for a week in the United States by Paramount Pictures out of concern over negative press after rumors began circulating that the film was racist. Prior to the date, it was released internationally in France in July 1982. Its first official American home video release came in December 2008 when The Criterion Collection released the original uncut film to DVD. (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...)
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Inseminoid (titled Horror Planet in the United States) is a 1981 British science fictionhorror film directed by Norman J. Warren and starring Judy Geeson, Robin Clarke and Stephanie Beacham, along with Victoria Tennant in one of her early film roles. The plot concerns a team of archaeologists and scientists who are excavating the ruins of an ancient civilisation on a distant planet. One of the women in the team (Geeson) is impregnated by an alien creature and taken over by a mysterious intelligence, driving her to murder her colleagues one by one and feed on them.
Inseminoid was written by Nick and Gloria Maley, a married couple who had been part of the special effects team on Warren's earlier film Satan's Slave. Filmed between May and June 1980 on a budget of £1 million, half of which was supplied by the Shaw Brothers, it was shot mostly on location at Chislehurst Caves in Kent as well as on the island of Gozo in Malta, combined with a week's filming at Lee International Studios in London. Composer John Scott completed the film's electronic musical score over recording sessions that lasted many hours. (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 Daicon III and IV Opening Animations are two 8 mm film anime short films that were produced for the 1981 Daicon III and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions. They were produced by a group of amateur animators known as Daicon Film, who would later go on to form the animation studio Gainax. The films are known for their unusually high production values for amateur works and for including numerous references to otaku culture, as well as its unauthorized appropriations of the Playboy Bunny costume. Usage of the songs "Runaway" by Bill Conti (from the soundtrack to the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only) as well as "Twilight" and "Hold On Tight" by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra were also unauthorized.
Daicon III was made by Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga and Takami Akai and Daicon IV credits twelve people, including Yamaga as the director and Anno and Akai as animation supervisors. Despite the questionable legal status of the works, the production of Daicon III resulted in debts that were repaid by selling video tapes and 8 mm reels of the production, the profits of which went to the production of Daicon IV. In 2001, the anime magazine Animage ranked the Daicon animations as the 35th of the "Top 100" anime of all time. (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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