Review: Milk
"How many gay supervisors do we have now?" my partner asked after we saw Milk on Friday night.
I thought about it for a moment and gave up. "I don't know."
Mind you, we're gay men living in San Francisco, and though we don't watch local politics intently, we do read the papers. But as it turns out, a new gay supervisor just got elected, and we didn't even know it.
The fact that an elected official's sexual orientation could have escaped our notice is testimony to the courage and vision of Harvey Milk, who ran for San Francisco supervisor twice and Assembly once before being elected supervisor in 1977. Gus Van Sant's new film honors Milk's legacy by telling his story in a way that captures the magnitude and the impact of his achievements -- not just on the city and country, but on Milk himself.
Stylistically, Milk is a mainstream film, with just enough distinctive touches thrown in to signal that we're watching a work by an independent, idiosyncratic artist. Van Sant, another gay man who has succeeded within the system while never giving up his point of view, clearly feels strongly about his subject. The performances are excellent across the board, especially from Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as murderer Dan White. The way they inhabit their characters is chilling. My only criticism is that Danny Elfman's music is sometimes intrusive and emotionally leading.
But the real hero behind the project is Dustin Lance Black, who was inspired to write the dramatic screenplay after seeing the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. Black shopped the script around until he found someone to film it. He's a meticulous writer, tracing Milk's life from a closeted existence as an insurance man in New York City through to his assassination in 1978 without overemphasizing any one aspect of it. Though the film shows its subject overwhelmingly in a positive light, it does present Milk as a three-dimensional person, a man and not a saint, with sometimes conflicting desires and impulses. Milk makes the sometimes complicated politics of San Francisco easy to understand, quickly laying out key issues and then circling back to refresh our memory. I can't vouch for all the historical details myself, but in some ways, this drama tells a more complete story more succintly than the documentary itself did.
Black was also downright prescient about the environment in which the film would be received. In its treatment of Anita Bryant's crusade against local gay-rights ordinances, culminating in a 1977 California initiative to fire gay teachers, Milk displays eerie parallels to the debate taking place in the aftermath of the anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8. Harvey Milk clashed with the gay "establishment" over the anti-Prop. 6 campaign, saying it wasn't enough to just talk about civil rights without mentioning actual gay people. Now debate rages over the very same issue. The film presents Milk as a politician with a different approach from current "leaders" of the gay community, one that is uncompromising about presenting gay faces and perspectives but also about forming effective coalitions with other groups.
Fortunately, Milk is also shaping up as a mainstream success. It was the No. 1o grossing movie in the country this past weekend despite showing on only 36 screens. The audience last night at the Castro Theatre, right in the heart of the neighborhood where the story takes place, must have been far from typical, though it was mixed. But in 20 years, always showing up 45 minutes before a major screening there, I have never had so many people in front of me in line for any movie. (There was enthusiastic applause not just after the film, but for individual scenes.) By the time its run has ended, Milk will have told many people more than they have ever known about the gay movement, and indeed, about real gay people.
Yet on a personal note, I have to say that seeing this movie at the Castro, a few blocks from home, was a filmgoing experience like none other. It was filmed mostly on location in the neighborhood, and in fact the set for Milk's photography shop was built in the storefront where his real shop once was. Knowing that, it was haunting to watch the many scenes that took place there. An older friend who lived here in Milk's era -- and later lost most of his friends to AIDS -- told me he found the movie depressing because he would rather be living in that time. But as someone who was far away and too young to understand what was happening at the time, watching the movie brought that world alive for me and returned its ghosts to their places in my midst. For this neighborhood, and for the gay community as a whole, Milk is a powerful and impassioned origin story.
I thought about it for a moment and gave up. "I don't know."
Mind you, we're gay men living in San Francisco, and though we don't watch local politics intently, we do read the papers. But as it turns out, a new gay supervisor just got elected, and we didn't even know it.
The fact that an elected official's sexual orientation could have escaped our notice is testimony to the courage and vision of Harvey Milk, who ran for San Francisco supervisor twice and Assembly once before being elected supervisor in 1977. Gus Van Sant's new film honors Milk's legacy by telling his story in a way that captures the magnitude and the impact of his achievements -- not just on the city and country, but on Milk himself.
Stylistically, Milk is a mainstream film, with just enough distinctive touches thrown in to signal that we're watching a work by an independent, idiosyncratic artist. Van Sant, another gay man who has succeeded within the system while never giving up his point of view, clearly feels strongly about his subject. The performances are excellent across the board, especially from Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as murderer Dan White. The way they inhabit their characters is chilling. My only criticism is that Danny Elfman's music is sometimes intrusive and emotionally leading.
But the real hero behind the project is Dustin Lance Black, who was inspired to write the dramatic screenplay after seeing the documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. Black shopped the script around until he found someone to film it. He's a meticulous writer, tracing Milk's life from a closeted existence as an insurance man in New York City through to his assassination in 1978 without overemphasizing any one aspect of it. Though the film shows its subject overwhelmingly in a positive light, it does present Milk as a three-dimensional person, a man and not a saint, with sometimes conflicting desires and impulses. Milk makes the sometimes complicated politics of San Francisco easy to understand, quickly laying out key issues and then circling back to refresh our memory. I can't vouch for all the historical details myself, but in some ways, this drama tells a more complete story more succintly than the documentary itself did.
Black was also downright prescient about the environment in which the film would be received. In its treatment of Anita Bryant's crusade against local gay-rights ordinances, culminating in a 1977 California initiative to fire gay teachers, Milk displays eerie parallels to the debate taking place in the aftermath of the anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8. Harvey Milk clashed with the gay "establishment" over the anti-Prop. 6 campaign, saying it wasn't enough to just talk about civil rights without mentioning actual gay people. Now debate rages over the very same issue. The film presents Milk as a politician with a different approach from current "leaders" of the gay community, one that is uncompromising about presenting gay faces and perspectives but also about forming effective coalitions with other groups.
Fortunately, Milk is also shaping up as a mainstream success. It was the No. 1o grossing movie in the country this past weekend despite showing on only 36 screens. The audience last night at the Castro Theatre, right in the heart of the neighborhood where the story takes place, must have been far from typical, though it was mixed. But in 20 years, always showing up 45 minutes before a major screening there, I have never had so many people in front of me in line for any movie. (There was enthusiastic applause not just after the film, but for individual scenes.) By the time its run has ended, Milk will have told many people more than they have ever known about the gay movement, and indeed, about real gay people.
Yet on a personal note, I have to say that seeing this movie at the Castro, a few blocks from home, was a filmgoing experience like none other. It was filmed mostly on location in the neighborhood, and in fact the set for Milk's photography shop was built in the storefront where his real shop once was. Knowing that, it was haunting to watch the many scenes that took place there. An older friend who lived here in Milk's era -- and later lost most of his friends to AIDS -- told me he found the movie depressing because he would rather be living in that time. But as someone who was far away and too young to understand what was happening at the time, watching the movie brought that world alive for me and returned its ghosts to their places in my midst. For this neighborhood, and for the gay community as a whole, Milk is a powerful and impassioned origin story.
Labels: Gus Van Sant, Harvey Milk, Milk, reviews, Sean Penn
posted by Steve at
9:57 PM
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