A Much-Needed Biopic of Perhaps the Most Important Politician of the Last Half of the 20th Century, As Well As a Blow to the Nuts of Prop 8

Rating: 10/10 (15 December 2008)

After seeing Milk, a much-needed biopic of perhaps the most important politician of the last half of the 20th century, I have a renewed respect for Sean Penn. He is among the contemporary powerhouse testosterone-heads like De Niro, Pacino, Hoffman, Hopper, Nicholson, you know, swarthy New Yorkers who use heavy method acting despite today's cynicism towards it. He was at one time the prototypical Hollywood punk who punched extras and photographers, did drugs and chain-smoked. Here he faithfully and lovingly reflects one of the most honest, understanding and loyal people in history, to an extent that none of his said peers have shown the balls to.
I see this film as not only a product of incredible dramatic and visual talent but also a righteous breakthrough of humanity in a most trying time for it. We never hear about the countless important gay men and women in history, but now Gus Van Sant, himself gay, has at last given us an accessible mainstream movie about one of them. To prove a significance for themselves today, when their basic rights are still being challenged, they, and we, have to relate to one of them in the past, as this film makes clear.
Harvey Milk became the first openly gay American elected to public office. He made a prevailing plea to closeted gays to come out to their families, friends and co-workers, so the straight world could stop vilifying a theoretical, nonrepresentational perception. But so influential was the movement he was key in motivating that I believe his demand has now virtually been regarded, apart from some willfully primitive regions of the country.
Van Sant's masterpiece begins with Milk remembering into his tape recorder about an individual passage that sparked at the ripe age of 40! At that cut-off point, he grew discontented with his life, determined he wanted to really accomplish something. A Republican stock researcher, he mingled with hippies in Greenwich and tiptoed the closet door, waving out hesitantly. He was in love with Scott Smith, played so becomingly by the underused James Franco. This is all absorbed from one scene, shot in a single, mostly stationary take. They moved to San Francisco, opened a camera shop and saw that even America's leading, most strident gay community was being methodically victimized by police.
What made Milk such an effective politician was that he didn't go into politics as much as he was pressed by the motivating proof he witnessed every day. He ran for the Board of Supervisors three times before being elected. He campaigned for a gay rights ordinance. He organized. His tongue was always in his cheek yet he always helped as much as he could. He built a coalition with liberals, unions, longshoremen, teachers, Hispanics, blacks and others with shared needs for equality. He ripened his gift for public relations. He became an invigorating spokesman. By now branded the Mayor of Castro Street, he secured public office. It was an oppressive platform from which to confront firebrands like fagnostic Anita Bryant, who Milk would taunt with his wisdom and confidence by calling her always by her first name.
Beautifully crafted, enveloping massive amounts of time, people and spirit without a frame of half-heartedness or drained momentum, this tenderly handled picture tells the story of its hero's ascent from disgruntled middle-aged hippie to nationwide icon. Entwined are his romances. He remained dormantly in love with Scott after they separated due to his political concentration. He is instinctively caring even of a second lover who becomes irrationally resentful of his political life, when the practical thing would be to sever the bond.
His most critical rapport was with Dan White, an apparently straight fellow supervisor, a Catholic who said homosexuality was a sin and canvassed with his family in red, white and blue. A thorny pact formed between Milk and White. If I were to criticize the film at all, I would lament that the depiction of the camaraderie between Milk and Mayor George Moscone is given far too little screen time.
There is no misstep in the taut, multi-faceted screenplay, the potent cast or the first-class technical film-making. There is not one shot that isn't given rich creative nuance. What's more, the film is so faithful to its period that it seamlessly uses stock shots wherever possible, opening with archives of police raiding gay bars, then Dianne Feinstein's announcement that Milk and Moscone had been assassinated. Knowing Milk's story beforehand didn't make the archival candlelight march at the end any less overwhelming. It was the effect of one man's resolution too late in his life for him to have ever expected. Milk adopts emboldened importance after the victory of the appalling Proposition 8 as an electrifying honor of a key gay figure who would be raising hell right now.