It's almost inconceivable to think that the real Harvey Milk, just weeks before his assassination, provided an account of his life story onto a series of tapes to be played upon his death. Yet those recording session done alone in his home provide the perfect framework for one of the most well-executed biography films in recent memory and one of the year's finest efforts. When I was in college in the late 1980s, I became obsessed with documentaries. I raided the film library of my university seeking out any doc I could get my hands on. And it was during this that I first saw the 1984 Oscar-winning work THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK, so Harvey's life, work, and fate were not surprises to me going into Gus Van Sant's MILK. What did surprise me was just how damn perfect Van Sant got this movie, with more than a little help from a top-notch cast led by Sean Penn, who throws himself into the role of America's first openly gay politician to achieve a significant office circa the late 1970s.
With only the slightest nose extension and a whole lot of New York moxie, Penn embodies Milk's energy, unflappable optimism, controlled rage, and remarkable sense of how to attract media attention. MILK is as much about a guy working the political machine as it is about a gay man pushing the nation into a new level of understanding and acceptance. And with all that is going on in the nation with gay marriage and the legal rights of domestic partners (hell, even eHarmony said it would open itself up to gay matchmaking next year), the film could not seem any more relevant.
The film opens at the end of Harvey's closeted existence in New York, where he meets the love of his life, Scott Smith (James Franco in a fascinating role as the man who often played second fiddle to his Milk's political ambitions). Upon moving to San Francisco, Milk is astonished to find a level of bigotry among the police and even some of his neighbors in the Castro section of the city. Milk immediately sets to organizing his own community groups of gay business owners, a move that gains the support of unions and eventually turns the Castro into gay HQ. It's almost impossible to fathom this much gay activism in an era before AIDS, but the 1970s was a time when gay rights was equated with civil rights, and Christian fundamentalists like Anita Bryant (who plays the film's villain through some beautifully incorporated archival footage) were leading a city-by-city charge to revoke equal rights legislation that included gay rights.
Perhaps the most intriguing performance in MILK belongs to Josh Brolin as a fellow city Supervisor Dan White, the man who was something of a friend to Harvey, even though so many of their views were at odds. White represented one of the few conservative sections of the San Francisco, but Milk was convinced he was a closeted homosexual. Van Sant's treatment of White is commendable and sympathetic. In many ways, White was a man who was outnumbered on the Board of Supervisors because of Harvey's popularity in the city and with the media, and although he got along with Milk most of the time, his frustration vented itself in all too destructive ways. Brolin's portrayal is nothing short of brilliant. There's a quiet scene of him sitting on his sofa in his underwear that is about as sad a thing as I've ever seen. And with no words, the scene and the actor convey a lifetime of world weariness.
The film's supporting cast is as good as any you'll see in 2008. Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, the man who went from street hustler to activist to the creator of the AIDS quilt; Diego Luna as Jack Lira, one of Harvey's many unstable boyfriends; Alison Pill as Milk's lesbian campaign leader; Victor Garber as San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, a man whose career and death will be forever linked to Milk; and a nasty turn by Denis O'Hare as State Senator John Briggs, who worked hand in hand with Bryant to overturn gay rights in California.
In so many of his films, director Van Sant has featured violence and death that we know is coming. Works like ELEPHANT, LAST DAYS, TO DIE FOR, and MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO (hell, we could even throw in his remake of PSYCHO, but I won't), the fate of some of the characters is known, and clearly MILK is no exception. But Van Sant is talented and smart enough to use that element of the story to tell his story. By showing Harvey as he dictates his biography (or perhaps he saw it as his obituary), Van Sant gives the film a subtle fatalistic atmosphere that transforms Milk's story into one of legend. I'm sure Milk wouldn't have wanted to be thought of as an icon during his lifetime, but I also believe that he's want his death to stand for something, and this film fulfills that. MILK is desperately fine filmmaking, telling a story that is both long overdue and perfectly in synch with the times. You may not consider this to be the ideal Thanksgiving choice, but you'd be wrong. There is nothing that speaks more strongly about this country's potential than MILK.
