Postcards from America

Postcards from America (sometimes styled as Post Cards from America) is a British and American independent film based on the books Close to the Knives and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline by David Wojnarowicz.[1] It has been described as an example of New Queer Cinema.

Postcards from America
Directed bySteve McLean
Written byDavid Wojnarowicz (novel)
Steve McLean
Produced byCraig Paull
Christine Vachon
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.

Production

This marked the first project on which Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler both worked. Koffler served as post-production producer on this film; the pair would form Killer Films, which released its first film the following year.[2]

Marc Maurino, the writer and executive producer of FreeRayshawn (2020) worked on the film as an intern.[3]

Release

Postcards from America premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1994.[4] It also played at the Berlin, Sundance, and Toronto Film Festivals.[5]

Reception

Postcards from America was awarded the International Confederation of Art Cinemas award at the Berlin Film Festival.[6]

The film received mixed to negative reviews upon release. Many reviews knocked the film for portraying "Wojnarowicz as a passive, inarticulate victim."[7] 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."[8] 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."[9] Adrian Martin called it "a depressingly poor attempt at making a vivid, iconoclastic, stream-of-consciousness movie about some rather grim, relentless and preening ideas."[10]

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.[11]

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. Mitchell, Wendy. The Centrepiece interview: Killer Films chief Christine Vachon on the fluctuating state of indie film. Screen Daily. 28 February 2020. Accessed 25 May 2021.
  3. Fanto, Clarence. Building a film career. The Berkshire Eagle. 25 January 2008. Accessed 25 May 2021.
  4. Far from Heaven : About The Filmmakers. Cinema.com. Accessed 25 May 2021.
  5. About Craig Paull. Accessed 25 May 2021.
  6. About Craig Paull. Accessed 25 May 2021.
  7. Artist as Nihilistic Victim. New York Times. 21 July 1995. Accessed 4 July 2020.
  8. McCarthy, Todd. Postcards from America. Variety, 19 September 1994. Accessed 4 July 2020.
  9. Levy.
  10. Postcards from America Film Critic: Adrian Martin September 1997. Accessed 30 January 2023.
  11. Guthman, Edward. `Postcards' From a Traumatic Life. SF Gate, 28 July 1995. Accessed 4 July 2020.
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