POSTCARDS FROM AMERICA
US, 1994, 93 minutes, Colour.
James Lyons, Michael Tighe, Dimo Tighe, Michael Imperioli.
Directed by Steve Mc Lean.
Postcards from America is a fictionalised portrait of artist and writer David Wojnarowicz, who died from an AIDS illness in 1992. A painter, photographer, artist for installations and one-man performances, he wrote two semi-autobiographies, Close to the Knives and Memories That Smell Like Gasoline. He was hailed as a significant writer and artist. A homosexual, he offered a literature and art about homophobia and homosexuality in the United States. The film recreates part of his life in fantasy form, wandering through the desert landscape, a voice-over talking about his anguish, his home life in his apartment, living in some kind of squalor. He also relives his life, flashbacks of him as a boy and as a young man. The background of his family life is very sad, an abusive alcoholic father, no love from his mother. His dream was the perfect American dream. However, he moves to New York, lives as a hustler, has liaisons with a number of men. Finally he contracts AIDS and remembers his father's suicide. He returns to the desert.
The film is avant-garde in many of its aspects, especially the cinema techniques and the visualising of the memories of the protagonist. The film asks for audience sympathy for the central character and his predicament. It also raises issues about American society, its changes from the 60s to the 90s, especially the outing of the gay men and the AIDS epidemic which devastated their community.
1. The audience for the film? The homosexual audience and the sympathy for David, his life, predicaments, American society, homophobia? For non-homosexual audiences, understanding character, situations, the emotional intensity, the homophobia, the experience of AIDS?
2. The visual style of the film, the range of cinema techniques, the hand-held camera, the colour design, framing, editing and pace? The structure of the film, David in the desert, the flashbacks, as a young man, as a boy? His childhood? Young adulthood? Life in New York City? Liaisons? Illness, wandering the desert? The musical score?
3. The title, the visualising of sequences as moving postcards? The emphasis on American society and what David's life and experience say about American society?
4. The portrait of David: seeing him in the desert landscape, his voice-over, the intensity, his scream? The transition to his apartment, the squalor of his apartment, the kitchen, the litter around the house? His consciousness of his illness, his body, the conflict inside him? The flashbacks, his mother, the alcoholic father, the abuse? His playing, swimming, the imagining of growing up in a wonderful family? The transition from New Jersey and the suburbs to New York? His poverty, the hustler, wanting some kind of physical contact, the absence of family love and the compensation? The range of men: the lawyer, giving him the meal, the man offering him a lift and the sexual attack, the art collector and his antagonism towards him, the rich man and the attempt at mugging him? The thugs, driving him into the desert, the threat to kill him? His relationship, his partner, developing AIDS, his reaction, memory of his father's suicide? The final sequences in the desert? A portrait of a human being, of a man, of somebody who wanted to be creative but could not break out of the traps that society had set for him?
5. The childhood, the portrait of the father, alcohol, abuse, suicide? The mother? The impact of parents on children, especially David and his struggle to understand himself and his identity and sexuality?
6. The men who picked up the hustler, their relationships, their violence, sexual predators, disdain? The thugs?
7. David's partner, their life together, the contracting of AIDS, the consequences for him and for David?
8. A 1990s glimpse of a changing world, American society, issues of sexuality and identity, AIDS and illness, America and its tolerance and intolerance?
