MILK (2008)

Only Gus Van Sant could have made this film, and brought so much insider accuracy of detail and understanding to this subject, and I think it’s taken him his whole career to get here. This is not a bald political statement, but a very nuanced portrait of the birth of modern gay culture through an individual, Harvey Milk, who was uniquely compassionate and also skilled at organization. Sean Penn gives some of his most concentrated and yet unaffected work, really submerging himself into the role. The entire cast is excellent.

The cinematography by Harris Savides is incredible. There’s an early shot in which Milk is talking to a policeman, identifying the body of a slain friend, and all the figures are reflected in a silver whistle laying on the ground (ironically given to gays so they could summon police protection if attacked). If this shot was truly done as a reflection rather than a digital effect, it’s one of the most amazing tributes to Orson Welles I’ve ever seen.

The gay characters move from self-interest to selfless sacrifice. They are not perfect human beings, their flaws show. Van Sant seems intent on showing pre-liberation gays as being crippled by neglect and discrimination — one young man who is a symbol of the struggle to survive is literally wheelchair-bound. A particularly damaged, fragile soul, the Latino Jack, becomes Milk’s lover for a time. While the film seems to sound a somewhat predictable note in terms of Milk’s public calling precluding the possibility of a happy personal life, it ultimately serves the purpose of showing what Milk states again and again — that the fight for gay rights is a fight for life against the threat of death. This film, partly because it’s still a novel thing to depict the pattern of a gay man’s life on film, avoids most cliches of the biopic, in my opinion.

At the heart of the film — or one of the hearts of the film — is a conflict between gay rights and religious ideology which remains timely to this very day. Without ever mentioning gay marriage (which didn’t exist as an issue in the 1970s), the film really suggests how the demand for marriage rights grew out an evolving movement to first protect gay lives, then property and business rights, then livelihood. In general, this film captures a moment where political outspokenness for gays (mirroring the black civil rights struggle) had not yet turned into codes of political correctness: it’s charming to hear the lesbian campaign manager refer to her “girlfriend” rather than the asexual “partner,” which we use today. In an ironic moment, Uber-hetero Dan White (Josh Brolin) refers to Milk’s group as “queers” and Milk corrects him, “We prefer gays.” Today, of course, the once insulting term has been adopted (“queer nation”) as a way of proudly stressing difference.

Brolin plays White as a troubled dark angel of family-man madness. He seems to dwell in some eternal midnight of the soul. Resentful, surly, often inarticulate, he is the opposite of the charismatic Milk, and White can’t understand why it is that in a supposedly heterosexual world he is the one who should get shafted again and again. He skulks and lurks around city hall, showing up everywhere like the loyal opposition. Outside of his three-piece polyester suit, he’s a slumping grown-up baby in a diaper-like pair of tighty whities.

So why does Van Sant go out of his way to make Brolin look like him, Van Sant? He accentuates White’s hairstyle so it looks exactly like the way Van Sant has worn his own hair for years — piled up on top with a huge sweep across the forehead. It’s a disturbing, even somewhat distracting touch, but perhaps Van Sant is trying to cop to some residue of shame or self-hatred in himself. Other Van Sant films have featured gay or pseudo-gay characters who were “their own worst enemies.” It’s a common syndrome, unfortunately, and one that not even a very enlightened gay artist can entirely escape.

The music is joyous and right on. Again, it’s so “insider” to have Patti Smith’s “Till Victory” playing at the Milk campaign headquarters, or to look up at Milk’s 41st birthday party and see disco diva Sylvester (not the real Sylvester, of course) serenading the partiers with his hit, “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real.” Italian opera comes in almost as an afterthought, and feels a little overfamiliar — it’s one aspect of “classic gay identity” that probably hasn’t worn so well.

The ending is very sad. The survivors reify the grass roots origins of the movement by organizing a band of mourners to march through San Francisco out of the Castro district; they are somber and carry votives. The gay rights movement lost some momentum after Milk died. And it’s impossible not to see this film and wonder how he would have dealt with the greatest crisis to the gay community, which was yet to come.

In terms of telling a complex, accurate story in a fluent way that emphasizes the humanity of the story, Van Sant’s Milk is one of the most artistically successful mainstream films of recent years. Is it completely mainstream? No more or less than Harvey Milk himself.

>>If this shot was truly done as a reflection rather than a digital effect, it’s one of the most amazing tributes to Orson Welles I’ve ever seen.<<
I saw that shot explained somewhere on the internet. It’s a traditional matte shot, though I have no doubt that it was created digitally rather than with the older method.
Unbelievably I still haven’t caught up with this film; I must remedy that.
Maybe if you search the internet, you’ll find some photos of White to determine if he wore his hair the way Brolin does … (though your theory about it matching vanSant’s hair is intriguing).

EDIT:
Photo of dan White here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_White

Thanks Harry.

There are photos of all the real life personages at the end of the film, compared with the actors playing them, and although the real White’s hair is similar, I have always had to do a double take watching Brolin in this film because he looks so thoroughly like Van Sant.

Yeah, it’s definitely a combination of two shots done post, digitally I assume.

It’s still a fantastic shot, either way, though. I was pretty stunned when I saw it, not expecting something like that, at all.

A very good movie, indeed.

Savvy

Yes, it is. And it’s not gratuitous because it’s a way of visually expressing Harvey’s realization that carrying a whistle around offers no real protection, that he’ll have to become the “someone who looks out for our interests.”

many shots of reflections in the film. Can anyone post a frame of the mayor being shot?

Right. The whistle is totally redefined — cut off from its intended use, which is a joke anyway. It becomes an ornate, meaningless object, disorientingly tipped upside down and also a kind of trap.

There’s another moment that’s like a pop art explosion where Cleve is using a phone to organize demonstrations, and the screen starts to fill up with little serial boxes of men talking on the phone. It’s very 1960s.

Thanks Matt for posting that.

Other beautiful reflected shots are the two that bookend a scene of demonstrations, beginning with Milk looking through the camera store window at demonstrators milling about, then after a few shots of Milk going out to join them, a shot of Scott reflected in the same window, except now Milk is among the demonstrators and Scott is looking specifically at him.

Casey, the mayor is shot off camera…

Nope. We see it. Through a mirror. The camera turns to it. Great shot (no pun intended)

It’s right before he shoots. The two men are arguing in his office, seen through the mirror. Then there’s a cut to the corridor as we hear the muffled shots.

Yah. Holds up the gun. We see it through a mirror. Great shot, I’m saying.

One of the visual themes of Milk is the idea of witness. It’s so delicious that the movement breaks out of a camera store, because in a way they are the eyes of the neighborhood, documenting abuses and unfairnesses.

Witness is more of a story theme. But story is tied to the visual theme…the idea of reflection. Sunglasses, cameras, mirrors. And the eyes of Milk at the end. What he sees

It is definitely one of the better historical documents captured on film that wasn’t a documentary. Additional kudos must go to Brolin for his performance. For the longest time, I had no idea this was the story that brought about the legendary “Twinkies made me do it” defense that Jello Biafra loved to poke fun at so much.

The Twinkie defense! Yes. So funny.

My BP win of 2008. Fantastic film.

That whistle shot above might be what made the movie for me.

Justin that’s a great summation of the film. You encompassed many of my thoughts about the film, and I have nothing to add…

Except this:
The twinkie defense did not work, and in fact it was just something that was considered by the defense on White’s case, but it was never used. Once again it was something the media latched onto, and blew way out of proportion basically to discredit the diminished capacity defense. The film gets that wrong I believe, although it’s detail of Dan White’s slovenliness after he had quit his job is perfect.

I keep thinking of you as Col. Dax, it’s hard to get used to calling you As It Were… um, the movie just mentions the defense, White was convicted of a lesser charge, manslaughter, and served the lightest sentence, 5 years, but the film implies that this had more to do with homophobia than with the twinkie defense.

Potato / PoTAHto.

Killing Harvey Milk was Dan White’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Had he killed Moscone alone he would have died in prison.

Thankfully he took the gas pipe.

I think that’s basically true. White was also an ex-policeman, which may have softened his sentence somewhat. We can only hope he got some intimate sensitivity-training toward homosexuality while in prison.

I was so happy to have seen this – I was meant to be DJing on the last night it was being shown in my town, but it was called off at last minute. I hear that the documentary ‘The Times of Harvey Milk’ is far superior though, anyone seen it here?

Sympathy for the protagonist is something that Gus Van Sant stirs up really well.
Overall there was nothing not to like in the film, details such as the authentic look of the 70’s was done with extreme care which is something that Hollywood has perfected long ago.

also, take a look at this frame from chinatown…

Andy, that’s a great point — Van Sant revives the whole idea of the hero, albeit in a non-traditional context, often.