Postman, The

Synopsis: Feature film. Set in 2013, after World War Three has destroyed most of USA, including the government. an itinerant actor nicknamed Shakespeare (Costner) who wonders between villages performing scenes from Shakespeare, is captured by a fascist military group called the Holnists led by General Bethlehem. When he escapes from the Holnists he finds an abandoned mail Jeep and uniform, and starts to travel through small cities, telling them he is a postman, a representative of the restored United States. No one believes him at first, but soon he has followers, and they start to prepare a revolt against the Holnists.
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Film
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Year of release: 1997
Duration: 177 mins

Director

Kevin Costner

Producer

Jim Wilson; Kevin Costner; Steve Tisch

Cinematographer

Stephen Windon

Screenplay

Brian Helgeland; Eric Roth

Music

James Newton Howard

Production Design

Ida Random

Art Direction

Derek R. Hill; Scott Ritenour

Cast

Kevin Costner	The Postman
Will Patton	General Bethlehem

General: Based on the novel by David Brin.
Reviews: Lanier, Douglas ‘Shakescorp Noir’ in Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol. 53, No. 2, Summer 2002, pp 157-180 writes ‘THE POSTMAN, concerned with the issue of cultural transmission in a post-apocalypyc America, pits an itinerant Actor nicknamed Shakespeare against an army of terroristic pillagers whose mad leader, Bethlehem, takes his inspiration from, irony of ironies, a corporate-management manual entitled Seizing the Way to Win. The film metaphorically links the (re) information of an imagined internal community through the restored postal system with the potential for cultural continuity offered by ‘Shakespeare’s opening half-parodic performance of Macbeth, both of which are cast as parallel acts of defiance against Bethlehem’s crypto-corporate fascism’.