Milk Review, LGBTQ History

Rating: 9/10 (24 January 2017)

"Milk", directed by Gus Van Sant, is a biopic of the first openly gay elected official in the United States, Harvey Milk. Set in 1970's San Francisco, this movie is filled with both hopeful messages of the gay rights movement and also emotional trials for Harvey Milk and his community.
In a strategic move that sets the scene as Harvey Milk being a martyr for the gay community, the film opens immediately with the fact that Milk and the Mayor of San Francisco have been assassinated. Harvey Milk, played by Sean Penn, opens the movie with a flashback to a recording of himself discussing the possibility of his assassination for his supporters the people around him as a member of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. This recording is cut in and out of throughout the entire film, with Harvey discussing many of the things he accomplished and also the many difficult times he faced. Milk, originally a relatively closeted insurance seller in New York City, is shown picking up a younger man in a subway station and ultimately share an intimate sexual scene. This man is Scottie Smith, played by James Franco, who ultimately becomes Milk's partner and eventual campaign manager. This scene is intimate, casual, and almost a lighthearted juxtaposition to the seriousness of the opening scenes about an impeding assassination. The movie continues on with Harvey and Scottie in San Francisco, with Harvey transforming into a bearded, camera store owning, openly out, resident of the Castro district. There are countless scenes of the lives of Harvey and Scottie and the surrounding happenings in the Castro eventually lead to the politicization of Harvey Milk. This change in his character is closely linked to the scenes of bar riots and corrupt police in the city during this time. The movie is focused mostly on the campaign and leadership of Harvey Milk, with many empowering scenes of gay pride, speeches of hope, and intimate moments between Harvey and his lovers and peers. Harvey's relationship with Scottie eventually comes to demise, and his struggles with this can be considered a major part of the plot of this film outside of the obvious political movement that is clearly the focus. The second relationship that is portrayed in this movie is with Jack, another man much younger than Harvey that comes knocking on his door looking for help with his psychological and drinking problems. Ultimately portrayed as unhealthy, this relationship is on Harvey's mind through many major moments in the movie while Scottie seems to have distanced himself. The final acts in the movie are scenes where Dan White, a fellow councilman, assassinates both Harvey and the Mayor. His motives are not made clear, and historically are also inconclusive, but the scenes are very "Hollywood" and include dramatic elements that are more than likely not as historically accurate as other parts of the movie. The assassination act itself is not a focus in this movie, with the scene only really lasting about ten minutes out of the entire two-hour film. Nicely wrapping this film up is the stunning display of the vigil that took place in San Francisco in honor of the victims of the killings.
Overall, this movie portrays Harvey Milk and the ear of gay liberation in an extremely positive and tasteful way. Sean Penn's Milk is incredibly powerful and ensues the heroic qualities that Milk in real life surely had in order to lead these sorts of movements and protests. That being said, there is a bit of an issue with how big the role of this one man is made to seem in this movie. There is a lack of understanding of the community that was already in place in San Francisco when Harvey and Scottie arrive there, as it almost seems like Harvey Milk is the only reason that anything political really took form in this community, when really it was the work of so many men and women trying to get rights for themselves and their peers.
The portrayal of Harvey and Scottie and Harvey and Jack is also something to be questioned about regarding the historical accuracy of this film. While the portrayal is arguably a positive one of homosexual relationships in comparison to the negative portrayals often seen in Hollywood, it is important to note that this is romanticized for the purpose of the viewer, as there are discrepancies on how these relationships went in Harvey's real life. I would argue that this is not super important to the portrayal of Milk as a man, it should be noted when critically looking at this film.
"Milk" overall can be taken as an honorable movie about an extremely honorable man. A biopic that is beautifully shot and scripted to be more historically accurate than many other movies take an attempt to reach. This film has "normalized" portrayals of gay relationships and the gay community in general from this time period. The added elements of movie making that went into this sort of Hollywood production should not take away from the overall message of hope and love, that surely Harvey himself would want to be taken away from this story that ended so tragically.