Milk
"Oh, what joy, what a glorious day! A new entry on Joe's Corner two consecutive days! What could I possibly have done to deserve this? And what can I possibly do to avoid ever doing it again?"
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America deservedly celebrated entering a new era on November 4th with the election of our first black president. A lot has, indeed, changed. But on the very same day, constitutional amendments were approved in states across the country banning gay marriage (even in states that ALREADY had laws on the books making it illegal) and even gay adoption. There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made, and the time has probably never been more right for a movie that reminds us of how far we've come, how far we still have to go, and how it IS actually possible to change things if we really dedicate ourselves to that change. "Milk" is such a movie.
Every biopic has certain limitations. To maximize the uplift many of the negative aspects of its subject's life are generally overlooked (and even the most saintly among us have such negative aspects), and we generally see them achieving great things a lot more swiftly and easily than they actually did in life. "Milk" is not without some of those problems, but it's very easy to overlook them in light of what it does right.
We are introduced to Harvey Milk's story right after he arrives in San Francisco in 1970 on the verge of turning 40 (and remarking "I'm not going to make it to 50"), intent on simply being a businessman (operating "Castro Camera") in the increasingly gay-dominated Castro neighborhood. But discriminatory laws and hostility from the police and other authority figures motivates him to run for a post as Castro's member of the Board Of Supervisors, eventually winning in 1977 and becoming the nation's first openly gay man to be elected to public office. You see his fierce dedication to the cause of gay rights (and beyond just that, civil rights in general), often at great personal risk. And you see the gradually increasing animosity between fellow Supervisor Dan White and Milk, which will definitely not end well.
If Milk is depicted as a bit of a saint, it's still awesome and inspiring to witness the dedication to helping people that fueled his work, and the way that dedication inspired the people that came in contact with him... people who, in many cases, had never accomplished anything significant in their lives and didn't think they ever would or could, but wound up doing just that when they connected with Harvey. And the film's obvious focus on Milk does not short the excellent supporting cast of characters, each of whom are fascinating in their own right. And the segment of the film in which our protagonists battle to stop the passage of Proposition 6 (an anti-gay proposition even more sinister than Proposition 8) impresses on us in no uncertain terms to relevance that this so-called period piece has for us today.
Then there's the acting. Sean Penn is, of course, one of our best actors, but his roles in recent years have often tended toward the over-the-top and boisterous. In "Milk", he tackles a character who had to over an very basic shyness and introversion to achieve his life's work, and makes it one of his most powerful characterizations (the very first comment I heard from the audience after the lights went up was one guy a couple rows ahead of me saying "Just give him the Oscar right now!"). Equally impressive work is done by Emile Hirsch ("Into The Wild") and James Franco (the "Spider-Man" movies). But by far the most outstanding supporting work is supplied by Josh Brolin ("No Country For Old Men", "W.") as Dan White. Brolin gives you an almost painfully realistic look at a deeply emotionally troubled man (whom the movie implies might have been a closeted gay man) who is eventually driven to a lethal act as a result of his deep-seated insecurities. If Penn deserves at least a nomination (and he does), so does Brolin. And Danny Elfman, who for decades has been the go-to composer for film makers who want a creepy and spooky supernatural type score, turns in some vastly different, sweeping, almost symphonic type music here that will hopefully lead to directors thinking of him in a different way.
Director Gus Van Sant started out in the movie business doing edgy, experimental indie films, eventually worked his way around to pure, big-studio mainstream Hollywood in movies like "Good Will Hunting", "Finding Forrester" and the remake of "Psycho", and then worked his way back to his experimental roots in films like the recent "Paranoid Park". "Milk" kind of takes the two approaches and makes them meet in the middle: a traditional biopic format with a few genuine Hollywood stars, but with some decidedly indie touches that leave you no doubt that Van Sant has made exactly the movie he intended to make without compromises, and told a story that not nearly enough people remember any more, but one that SHOULD be remembered and celebrated. The end result is a strong, important film that is also exactly the right movie at the right time.
*************************************************************************************
America deservedly celebrated entering a new era on November 4th with the election of our first black president. A lot has, indeed, changed. But on the very same day, constitutional amendments were approved in states across the country banning gay marriage (even in states that ALREADY had laws on the books making it illegal) and even gay adoption. There is still a lot of progress that needs to be made, and the time has probably never been more right for a movie that reminds us of how far we've come, how far we still have to go, and how it IS actually possible to change things if we really dedicate ourselves to that change. "Milk" is such a movie.
Every biopic has certain limitations. To maximize the uplift many of the negative aspects of its subject's life are generally overlooked (and even the most saintly among us have such negative aspects), and we generally see them achieving great things a lot more swiftly and easily than they actually did in life. "Milk" is not without some of those problems, but it's very easy to overlook them in light of what it does right.
We are introduced to Harvey Milk's story right after he arrives in San Francisco in 1970 on the verge of turning 40 (and remarking "I'm not going to make it to 50"), intent on simply being a businessman (operating "Castro Camera") in the increasingly gay-dominated Castro neighborhood. But discriminatory laws and hostility from the police and other authority figures motivates him to run for a post as Castro's member of the Board Of Supervisors, eventually winning in 1977 and becoming the nation's first openly gay man to be elected to public office. You see his fierce dedication to the cause of gay rights (and beyond just that, civil rights in general), often at great personal risk. And you see the gradually increasing animosity between fellow Supervisor Dan White and Milk, which will definitely not end well.
If Milk is depicted as a bit of a saint, it's still awesome and inspiring to witness the dedication to helping people that fueled his work, and the way that dedication inspired the people that came in contact with him... people who, in many cases, had never accomplished anything significant in their lives and didn't think they ever would or could, but wound up doing just that when they connected with Harvey. And the film's obvious focus on Milk does not short the excellent supporting cast of characters, each of whom are fascinating in their own right. And the segment of the film in which our protagonists battle to stop the passage of Proposition 6 (an anti-gay proposition even more sinister than Proposition 8) impresses on us in no uncertain terms to relevance that this so-called period piece has for us today.
Then there's the acting. Sean Penn is, of course, one of our best actors, but his roles in recent years have often tended toward the over-the-top and boisterous. In "Milk", he tackles a character who had to over an very basic shyness and introversion to achieve his life's work, and makes it one of his most powerful characterizations (the very first comment I heard from the audience after the lights went up was one guy a couple rows ahead of me saying "Just give him the Oscar right now!"). Equally impressive work is done by Emile Hirsch ("Into The Wild") and James Franco (the "Spider-Man" movies). But by far the most outstanding supporting work is supplied by Josh Brolin ("No Country For Old Men", "W.") as Dan White. Brolin gives you an almost painfully realistic look at a deeply emotionally troubled man (whom the movie implies might have been a closeted gay man) who is eventually driven to a lethal act as a result of his deep-seated insecurities. If Penn deserves at least a nomination (and he does), so does Brolin. And Danny Elfman, who for decades has been the go-to composer for film makers who want a creepy and spooky supernatural type score, turns in some vastly different, sweeping, almost symphonic type music here that will hopefully lead to directors thinking of him in a different way.
Director Gus Van Sant started out in the movie business doing edgy, experimental indie films, eventually worked his way around to pure, big-studio mainstream Hollywood in movies like "Good Will Hunting", "Finding Forrester" and the remake of "Psycho", and then worked his way back to his experimental roots in films like the recent "Paranoid Park". "Milk" kind of takes the two approaches and makes them meet in the middle: a traditional biopic format with a few genuine Hollywood stars, but with some decidedly indie touches that leave you no doubt that Van Sant has made exactly the movie he intended to make without compromises, and told a story that not nearly enough people remember any more, but one that SHOULD be remembered and celebrated. The end result is a strong, important film that is also exactly the right movie at the right time.
posted by Joe Bunce at
8:35 AM
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