Movie Review: Milk

Philosopher George Santayana famously wrote that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Unfortunately, even those who do remember the past may also be condemned to repeat it. So I was reminded while watching Milk, the new Gus Van Sant biopic about pioneering gay politician Harvey Milk, who became a San Francisco Supervisor (essentially, a City Council member) in January 1978, only to be assassinated less than 11 months later.

What triggered my musing was this: Just as Milk fought the anti-gay Prop 6 thirty years ago, so too did California gay activists fight the anti gay-marriage Prop 8 this year, albeit less successfully. Milk and the 1978 gay community won; the 2008 gay community didn't. The film couldn't be more timely.

Milk's story proper begins when Milk (Sean Penn, in a transformative portrayal) was a New York City insurance executive, closeted and clean-cut. He picks up a hottie on the steps down to the subway, Scott Smith (played with flirtatious charm by another hottie, James Franco). Smith moves in with Milk and, in short order, they pick up stakes and move to San Francisco, where Milk promptly goes native, growing his hair long and adding a scruffy beard and moustache. He opens a camera shop in the gay district soon to be known as the Castro, and before long becomes a gay activist.

One failing of the otherwise interesting film is that it never gives any insight into the reason behind Milk's rapid career change from insurance to gay insurgency. It's not too much of a stretch to say that Milk was born again--an analogy that will probably annoy the right-wingers, and let them howl as far as I'm concerned. To say that Milk's transformation accompanied his coming out is to explain little: which was cause, and which was effect? And why do some people who come out turn into activists when most do not? The film sheds no light on these questions, whose answers are the engine that powered Milk as he became the first openly gay man (and only the second gay person) in the entire country to be elected to a meaningful public office.

Alas, his victory was short lived. For those who don't already know the outcome, the film begins with archival footage of a stricken Diane Feinstein, then president of the Board of Supervisors, later mayor and now senator, announcing the assassination of Milk and liberal Mayor George Moscone. Excised from the clip is Feinstein's next sentence, in which she announces the suspected assassin. Framing the film is voiceover from Milk as he records a tape to be played in the event of his own violent death. To be an openly gay politician in 1977 was to be a target, and Milk received many death threats.

As the film shows, Milk was charismatic, but even had he not been, he was nothing if not tenacious. He ran for office four times, always without the support of the city's gay establishment, which thought his street-activist populism too disruptive and untamed. The election he won was his last--he twice ran unsuccessfully for supervisor in citywide elections, then unsuccessfully for state assembly, then finally prevailed as supervisor when the city established a system of district elections in order to more equitably represent various ethnic and other groups. Geography is destiny: the same change in Boston led to the election of an openly gay city councilor in that city just a few years later, and the concentration of gay people in West Hollywood led to its incorporation in the mid-1980's as the first city with a gay majority on the city council.

The movie, like many biopics, recounts its subject's life (or, here, the last eight years of it) as a sequence of occurrences, one after another, without a strong sense of story arc. People and events don't feel as though they're moving towards any sort of climax. This is a common problem with biopics; after all, real life is generally just one damn thing after another, as the saying goes, without narrative cohesion. Van Sant tells his story in a conventional style, without the experimentalism that marks some of his films. The film is marked by vivid acting and fine technical credits.

Any story needs conflict, and any hero--Milk, notwithstanding a certain fey nebbishness, is a hero--needs an antagonist. SPOILER ALERT. Milk's nemesis doesn't appear until the final third of the film, in the form of fellow candidate and, then, supervisor, Dan White (a chilling Josh Brolin). White is by turns cold, then needy, then infuriated, but always seems emotionally empty. He commits his crime with cold calculation, which makes all the more bitter the revelation (in a "where are they now" sequence during the credits) that he received but a slap on the wrist for a double homicide. His ultimate fate, though, served justice in a perhaps unintended way. END OF SPOILER

Milk's violent death, after seeing his joie de vivre, is heartbreaking, and the candlelight march in his honor that followed left much of the press screening audience in tears. The march once again reminded me of the post-election marches against Prop 8, both of them constituting protests against public cruelty targeted at a still disfavored minority. As Faulkner once said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Running time: 128 mins. Rated R for language, some sexual content and brief violence. Opened Nov. 26 (NY, LA, San Francisco). In general release December 5.

Comments

[Dehrenstein]

There's no simple explanation for why someone deeply embedded in the closet decides to climb out. And Milk wisely doesn't try to offer one. Clearly the gay rights movement post-Stonewall made a major impact on Harvey Milk. He had some money from his investment career so he cashed in his chips and got the hell out of Dodge. Moving to San Francisco and settling up shop in the Castro created a new kind of life for him. And it became even newer when he decided to get involved in local politics. The film captures all this beautifully.

[RussellH]

Perhaps a reader/poster will help me with the title of Randy Shilts well-done book on our military. I remember reading it with fascination and fear. Likely we will re-visit Don't Ask/Don't Tell in Obama's first term. Time to make equality our cartchphrase for the Obama era!

[sbowerman]

The military book is" Conduct Unbecoming" . Randy Shiltz also wrote "And The Band Played On" which detailed the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. He was a terrific San Francisco writer who lost his life to AIDS.

[ocinemod]

I saw Milk yesterday. Faulkner was right. 30 years ago today doesn't seem past at all thanks to the film's vividness. Sean Penn and Josh Brolin are remarkable. Van Sant is a major talent.
What motivated Harvey Milk to get religion, the out gay one anyway, is a bit vague, possibly because we don't really know his process. (I haven't read the Shilts' book.)
Maybe I'm looking at that this way. Anybody can come out, make a difference, fight injustice. Maybe merely seeing the injustices Milk saw might promote personal action. No miraculous transformation necessary. You don't have to be born again.

[Steamboater]

Milk's transformation isn''t really something to ponder about. He was Gay. That's enough and every Gay person knows what he or she is up against. Some of us take action and others wait to follow. There's always leaders and followers in any movement. It's not something that needs questioning. Why did Rosa Parks decide to not take it any more? Is it important what fueled her transformation? To whites maybe but not to Parks or for that matter to Milk. It was in their blood and their courage came from horrendous experiences that no one, no white or heterosexual can ever really understand.

[lisany]

I saw "Milk" at a Writers Guild screening last week and agree that it's an important and beautifully made film, but I feel I must respectfully disagree that Harvey Milk's character arc is incomplete as depicted; Milk's activism grows consistently throughout the first half of the film, taking on new levels of fervor each time he runs again for Supervisor after a loss. It's a subtle arc, but this is part of Van Sant's gift, to allow the viewer to interpret who the man was. Harvey Milk was truly an American hero who didn't set out to be one, and this comes across magnificently.

[IrmaCMD]

Saw this last night - amazingly great film. Sean Penn is the one to beat come Oscar time. The true flaw in the movie is that it should have been released in October where it would have been a mighty force against Prop 8. Harvey Milk's message 30 years ago was HOPE and that was needed then and definitely needed now.

BTW - when you go see this film and you definitely should, DO NOT GO SEE IT AT A CINEMARK THEATER apparently the CEO donated 10K to the Prop 8 bill " and now wants to profit from Milk!

The CEO of Cinemark, Alan Stock, donated $9999 to the Yes on 8 Campaign, but will now profit from showing MILK in his theaters.

http://www.nomilkforcinemark.com/

[sbowerman]

Jonathon,

Great review. I'd suggest reading Randy Shilts' book " The Mayor of Castro Street: the Life and Times of Harvey Milk " published by St. Martins Press in 1982. Shilts wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle and it's a terrific book on Harvey Milk and the politics in San Francisco at the time.

What a city !

[twohearts]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I am really glad that it has opened and is being shown across the country. I don't know if anyone could make a film about Milk's intentions, his "awakening" or something similar. Maybe too late...and now he is an icon!

Like ProudLiberalDan, I strongly recommend 1985's documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk." Wow! Marc Isham's score is incredibly beautiful & apt.

[lizr]

Yes, the earlier doc is great.

I cant wait to see this.

I remember well the shock - I lived in SF at the time, picking up a NYC paper when I was visiting to see Milk Shot in the headline.

I'll never forget going back home and being in the marches, and the awful riots when White was let off. Harvey was not just a hero, he was a nice and a funny guy! Delightful person.

Wish he were still here.. His sense of humor and lightness would serve us well in these wild times.

[ProudLiberalDan]

I love this film.

There are a whole generation of gays and their supporters who have no idea who Harvey Milk was.

This movie was just what I needed. It couldn't be MORE timely.

I hope everyone who has even the slightest interest will see it. They will not be disappointed.

It took 20 years for this film to make and it was worth the wait.

I'm reminded of Louise Hay saying, "We are born into the middle of a movie and we leave in the middle of one." Life has ups and downs and moments that are more intense than others and mini-climactic, but it does seem that life doesn't build into a climax. Even after the election, people are still trying to work their way forward and get on with their lives.

I also hope people will check out the Oscar-winning documentary, "The Times of Harvey Milk".