It isn’t easy, of course, to reduce an entire decade to convenient encapsulations.  But it is possible to put our finger on its corporeal pulse.  The 1980s did not have the grim, disillusioned, bitter flavor of the 1970s; nor did the decade have the self-satisfied triumphalism of the 1990s.  In some ways the 1980s was a period of recovery, hopeful interlude, and buoyant optimism.  I think the movies of the decade reflect these generally positive sentiments.  There was a collective feeling that the future would be bright, and that if a man rolled up his sleeves and took a deep breath, he could accomplish almost anything.  Yet when speaking about an entire decade, things are never quite so simple.  We find that, behind the optimistic façade of the 80s, there lurked more than a little foreboding and dread. The tension between these competing cultural emotions was responsible for some of the decade’s greatest cinematic art.