A victory for new queer cinema

Rating: 10/10 (11 September 2009)

Gus Van Sant's Milk, the biopic of martyred gay rights activist Harvey Milk, arrives at a crest of a tide of new queer cinema. The Oscar-winning film represents progress in gay filmmakers' autonomy as a kind of celebration of a gay icon who worked to secure gays and lesbians greater rights in society. It also tempts mainstream viewers with its edgy, transgressive subject matter. For these reasons and others, Milk is a cinematic triumph.
The feature opens with Harvey Milk taping his last testament, which is to be listened to only "in the event of my death by assassination." It then moves to a vignette of Milk making the moves on a young Scott Smith on a N.Y.C. subway staircase. Milk tells Smith after they become involved that on his 40th birthday, he hasn't done a thing he's proud of. He wonders if he'll make it to see age 50.
The couple relocates to San Francisco, and Milk opens a camera shop on Castro street, which will become his political stage of sorts. Milk discovers his knack for organizing people and at last, his vocation is found: politics. The leader of the Teamsters walks into the camera store and asks Milk if he can get his people to help with the not-so-successful Coors beer boycott. Milk gets Coors beer out of all of the gay bars in the Castro area, and a week later the Teamsters' union hires openly gay drivers for the first time. Milk soon receives the title "The Mayor of Castro Street." Director Van Sant doesn't rein himself in too much, resorting to the type of creative flourishes you'd expect in one of his newer films and not in a by-the-numbers biopic. Milk campaigns for supervisor of the California State Assembly and many of his slogans are illustrated for us on posters that take up the frame. As attacks on gays spike in the area, the gays start using whistles to announce when one is getting physically assaulted. One homosexual is murdered, and Van Sant shoots an entire scene using the reflection of Milk talking to a cop in a tiny, bloodied metal whistle.
For the most part, though, the film simply tells the story of Milk's rise and fall. Harvey repeatedly runs for supervisor and eventually wins an election by 30%, against sixteen other candidates. Milk becomes a dedicated foe of sizeable corporations and real estate developers, but especially a proponent of gay rights. A civil rights bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual affiliation is signed into law with Milk's participation. The next issue that Milk faces is the Briggs Initiative, also known as Proposition 6, which would make the dismissal of gay teachers, and any public school employees who support gay rights in California, compulsory. A new battle is on.
Actor Sean Penn is masterful in his portrayal of the grandiose Milk, and his Oscar win is well-deserved. A maven of details, Penn takes on his subject's circumstances, mannerisms and psychology. The stellar cast is rounded out by other natural wonders, including Emile Hirsch as activist Cleve Jones, James Franco as Milk's paramour and friend Scott Smith, and Josh Brolin as Milk's fellow supervisor Dan White.
As everyone knows, Harvey Milk was assassinated - and it's likely that some of his power only increased with this tragedy. In the film, he says that not only gays but all minorities have to be given hope. The film seems to work best when understood as part of a greater social conflict: the one for basic equality. The aftermath of Milk's murder includes riots, and why not? Harvey is a relatable figure. When he calls Scott Smith close to the film's climax and Smith tells Milk how proud he is of him, we can empathize and perhaps realize something we, too, have done to be proud of. And just before the credits roll, as the filmmakers show us the actors' faces and juxtapose them with their real-life counterparts, showing us what became of them, the movie's magic gives way to the present-day reality of this struggle's fruits. Milk is Van Sant's multilayered, very alive, utterly engaging masterpiece. Bravo, Mr. Van Sant.