Milk
I know that most holiday movies are about feel good films. Maybe even about a dog or something like that. But aren't the holidays also about the spirit about togetherness? And acceptance? And maybe even basic human dignity and universal love?
I saw Milk today and I can say that I think this is one of the best movies I have ever saw. Not only does it make viewers believe and see that change can happen in our life time, but that maybe one person can make a difference. Pretty important ideas in this day and age. And really, living in California. Can anyone see Milk and still believe in Prop. 8?
Ignoring the experimental dream-like cinema that marked Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park, in Milk director Gus Van Sant uses conventional biopic techniques to depict the life of Harvey Milk, the San Francisco entrepreneur who became the first openly gay man elected to public office. Employing a less-than-effective framing device that shows Milk talking into a tape recorder at the beginning and end, the film also relies on archival footage to make its point, showing police abuses against gays and Diane Feinstein announcing the assassination of Milk and Mayor Moscone outside San Francisco's City Hall in 1979.
In the film, Van Sant wants to introduce Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) to a new generation who know him only as a footnote and, in the process, to gain mainstream adherents for the cause of gay rights. In that, he largely succeeds, though the film tends to reinforce homophobic stereotypes by allowing overly effeminate and flamboyant characters to dominate. Sean Penn's polished performance as Harvey Milk is the highlight of the film and one sure to be remembered at Oscar time.Van Sant makes the outspoken businessman a plausible and even lovable hero despite his insecurities.
Also impressive is Josh Brolin as Supervisor Dan White and Emile Hirsch as street-walker turned political activist Cleve Jones. Opening in New York in 1970, Milk touches briefly on Harvey's pickup of a much younger Scott Smith (James Franco), at a subway station, and follows their relationship to their establishment of a camera store on Castro Street in San Francisco. Though Scott was Milk's live-in lover for many years and ultimately his first campaign manager, little attempt is made to show him or other peripheral characters in much depth, identifying them only by their sexuality and support of the movement that Harvey built from the bottom up.
Depicting the growth of the gay community in the area that centered on Castro Street, Van Sant captures the entrepreneurial spirit of the gay businesses that flourished on the street, yet he avoids the not-so-attractive aspects of the area that became in essence a sexual ghetto - its conformity of dress and speech, the proliferation of gay bars and bath houses in the neighborhood, and its toll of alienated and depressed inhabitants.
Harvey's mission from the outset of his political career was to encourage homosexuals to come out of the closet. "The blacks", he said, "did not win their rights by sitting quietly in the back of the bus. They got off! Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets... We are coming out! We are coming out to fight the lies, the myths, the distortions! We are coming out to tell the truth about gays!"
Milk's two losing campaigns for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and his close defeat in his race for the State Assembly did not dim his determination or sense of purpose, however; yet it was only when districts were reapportioned to ensure neighborhood preferences that Milk was able win election as a Supervisor. He became more than a one-issue official, lending his support to unions and the urban poor, his populism reflecting the basic belief that rebuilding neighborhoods was essential to achieve the American Dream. Milk organized his constituency into an effective political force which effectively faced the challenge of fighting Proposition 6, a statewide initiative to prohibit gays from teaching in the public schools, effectively legalizing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Milk is not only a heartbreaking film because of the assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but also heartbreaking for the life long struggle for equality Harvey seeks to achieve. It's sad because Harvey Milk isn't asking for special treatment or special rights as a gay man -- rather all Milk wants is the same rights that are given to a heterosexual person.
If all men are said to be created equal, why should the gay men be treated like second class citizens with half the rights of straight men? The film isn't just a political statement, but also a biography of a tragic soul. We first see Harvey Milk in the film recording something that he intends people to listen to in the event that he is assassinated. We are then shown flashbacks of how Harvey got to the place of power and subsequently the level of fear that he has at the beginning. Harvey is 40 years old whenever he meets Scott, who would become his lover. Harvey confesses that turning 40 is a hard thing for him to take, as he doesn't feel like he's done anything memorable up to that point. Engulfed in passion and a desire to get something more out of life, Harvey and Scott move to San Francisco and open a small camera shop.
Tired of all the ill treatment that gay people must deal with, Harvey decides to do something about it. He becomes a gay activist and quickly becomes interested in running for public office.
Biographies are often a hard genre to work with, as you more than likely know what will become of your main character before the opening credits even roll. Milk is no different, as I had read plenty of the life and death of Harvey Milk before I walked into the screening of the movie. This isn't a movie where you have to worry about spoilers; the final act of the film plays out just as I read in newspaper articles. It's a hard scene to watch, though the restraint that director Gus Van Sant achieves in the scene makes it not so disturbing that you feel like you shouldn't be watching. The film is certainly not a snuff film and I imagine the death of Harvey Milk was a portion of a film nobody wanted to film but they inevitably had to.
What I liked about the film is that while the movie is all about Harvey Milk, it doesn't try and place rose colored glasses over the viewer's eyes when showing Milk's life. Harvey Milk wasn't a perfect man, even though he was fighting a just cause. He made mistakes and the film isn't afraid of showing them. Nor does the film offer justifications towards some of his behavior. This is certainly not to say that the film endorses the actions of Dan White, the assassin. Instead the film offers a full-fledged characterization of every character. There is no black and white generalizations of good and evil and there are instead plenty of gray and uncertain areas.
The film is a great one. All of the actors here step up their game to give in many instances their best performance to date. Josh Brolin is the right actor to play a man like Dan White, who could be played by a lesser actor with less sincerity in getting to know the character and we may forgive the film. Brolin knows that Dan White is a complicated character and doesn't try and play his emotions to just be simple. James Franco as Harvey's lover at the beginning of the film defines a supporting performance and he really shows his acting abilities in this film.
However, it is the character of Harvey Milk that is obviously most important to get right and Sean Penn is more than up to the challenge. I'm thinking of proper adjectives to describe his performance that goes far beyond looking and sounding like the actual Harvey Milk. Sure, I could say "great" or "very good" or even "Oscar worthy" and that could be my blurb for this review, but what Penn achieves here is so much more than that. To say that there is never a moment of forced acting or that there is never a scene in which Penn overacted is an understatement.
The film isn't perfect, as there are a few small moments of footage that could have been dropped in the cutting room and the movie would be better, but that doesn't affect how I rate it. While there may be tidier films this year, there are few as effective as Milk. What I am most impressed by is the directing by Gus Van Sant, who in my book has crafted his best film since 1997s Good Will Hunting. While I like Good Will Hunting a little bit more than Milk, I have to concede that this is the best directed film by Gus Van Sant. Van Sant helms the movie with moments where his style is subtle while at other times his mark is obvious. I could not think of another director that could have made this biography as devoid of Hollywood touches that we are all too familiar with. Gus Van Sant is never anything but respectful to Harvey Milk's lasting legacy. A mark of a great director, Gus Van Sant and everybody realizes that the movie plays second fiddle to the real Harvey Milk, the man whose efforts were not in vain.
While Milk is a message movie that unabashedly promotes a point of view, it transcends didacticism to become a human statement about the struggle of all people to achieve dignity, acceptance, and basic human rights and its depiction of the torchlight parade of 30,000 people to San Francisco City Hall on the night of the assassination is a magic moment. The film begins and ends with Milk expressing his love for another human being, a statement that the success of the gay rights movement will be ensured only when people are seen as human before they are seen as gay or straight. Ironically, that may happen only when the gay and the straight identities are subsumed into a broader understanding of what it truly means to be human.
On a side note, if anyone wants to know more about Harvey Milk, I totally recommend the documentary film, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.