Post Cards from America

Postcards from America (sometimes styled as Post Cards from America) is an American independent film based on the books Close to the Knives and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz.[1]

Postcards from America
Directed bySteve McLean
Produced byCraig Paull
Christine Vachon
Written byDavid Wojnarowicz (novel)
Steve McLean
StarringJames Lyons
Michael Imperioli
Michael Ringer
Maggie Low
John Ventimiglia
David Strickland
CinematographyEllen Kuras
Edited byElizabeth Gazzara
Distributed byStrand Releasing
Release date
  • September 10, 1994 (1994-09-10)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The non-linear film presents sequences from three periods in the protagonist's life. The character, called only David, is portrayed by James Lyons in his adulthood, and by Michael Tighe and Olmo Tighe in his teenage and adolescent years.

Reception

Postcards from America received mixed to negative reviews upon release. Many reviews knocked the film for portraying "Wojnarowicz as a passive, inarticulate victim."[2] Variety described it as "(a) downer without much compensatory insight or dramatic power" in which "McLean shuffles and deals the cards from his deck in a highly selective manner and leaves far too many of them face down."[3] In a review for The Advocate, Emanuel Levy concluded that Postcards "a dispassionate, uninvolving film" that "may be drenched in too much style, making the experience even more fractured and remote."[4]

One favorable review commended it for the use of scenes in which characters address the audience, saying the device was better-utilized in Postcards than in The Sum of Us.[5]

References
  1. Levy, Emanuel. Postcards from America: Steve McLean’s Tale of Troubled Gay Man, Inspired by David Wojnarowicz. EmanuelLevy, 21 July 2007. Accessed 4 July 2020.
  2. Artist as Nihilistic Victim. New York Times. 21 July 1995. Accessed 4 July 2020.
  3. McCarthy, Todd. Postcards from America. Variety, 19 September 1994. Accessed 4 July 2020.
  4. Levy.
  5. Guthman, Edward. `Postcards' From a Traumatic Life. SF Gate, 28 July 1995. Accessed 4 July 2020.
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