Milk (2008)

I've seen the movie Milk, nominated for Best Picture of 2008, twice now, and each time has been an emotional experience for me. Coming so soon after the defeat that gay people in California suffered at the ballot box in November, this movie reminds us of a time when it was even more difficult to be gay, and yet there were people like Harvey Milk who just kept pushing for more recognition of our dignity as human beings. It's a biopic on the surface, but it's also bracing political commentary that couldn't be more timely.

The film begins with archival footage of men being arrested in gay bars, a reminder of the context out of which Harvey Milk emerged as a political figure. The present-day narrative begins with Sean Penn as Harvey dictating a message to be played in the event of his death by assassination. Of course, Milk was assassinated along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, and the film wastes no time in letting viewers (some of whom are apparently unaware) of this outcome. Knowing the ending of the story in no way diminishes its impact, though, because what really matters is how Milk came to live his life openly and proudly once he moved from New York to San Francisco in the early 1970s.

I love the fact that the filmmakers begin Harvey's historical odyssey with his meeting of a younger man on the New York subway on the eve of his 40th birthday. The two men go back to Harvey's place and have sex, which is depicted in shadow but nonetheless depicted, before talking about what the future holds for them. In fact, what is really admirable about this approach is that it does not desexualize Milk. Harvey was a believer in sexual freedom, and the references to bathhouses and open relationships and such only serve to reinforce that. Thankfully, no one tried to "tone down" the story of this man who was emblematic of his time and place.

I admired all of the performances in this movie. James Franco as Milk's great love Scott Smith gives us a sense of the frustration that his real-life counterpart must have felt to see how powerfully politics engulfed Harvey; he's such a sweet person, but ultimately, he just can't help feeling abandoned due to Harvey's political ambitions. Emile Hirsch is fantastic as a young Cleve Jones, happy to be in a place like San Francisco where he can be openly gay. Josh Brolin adds to an already impressive body of work here with his portrayal of Dan White, the man who assassinated Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. (Again, I'm not giving away any secret by stating that. If you're unfamiliar with the story, the film also catches you up to speed at the beginning by showing archival footage of Dianne Feinstein, then the president of the Board of Supervisors, making the announcement.) I think this is perhaps the best ensemble cast of any movie this past year. Everyone seems to have taken to heart the spirit of the project and the legacy that Harvey Milk represents.

If I have any criticisms of the casting at all, it would be with Diego Luna as Jack Lira, who became Harvey's lover after Scott's departure. Well, it isn't really with Luna's performance, I guess, since he is apparently portraying Jack the way that people remembered him. He's just an annoying presence, one of those people who never seems to be happy and is always taking up so much of other people's energy. I know there are people like that, and the filmmakers have been careful not to make everyone gay into a saintly figure in this film, thankfully.

Of course, the greatest performance--and one of the best of the year--is by Sean Penn as Harvey himself. I've never been as fond of Penn's performances as everyone else. I thought he was actually overrated in Mystic River, which brought him an Oscar for Best Actor. I can acknowledge that he has range, but there's always been some sense of a person who's "Acting" (yes, capital letter and all) that's too present in most of his roles. Here, though, he manages to make me forget that it's Sean Penn. Physically, he's a bit too buff to look just like Harvey, but otherwise, the resemblance is pretty close. He even manages to get the mannerisms associated with Harvey down right. I was able to become caught up in Milk's story rather than Penn's performance, and for me, that's a sign of a good acting job.

The most intriguing part of the film's narrative has to do with the campaign against Proposition 6, which would have banned gay people from teaching in the schools in California. Harvey became that proposition's leading opponent, and the film does a respectful job of demonstrating just how much effort and time he and his colleagues put into that fight. Of course, you can't watch Milk now without thinking of the campaign against Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage in California via constitutional amendment. This film challenges you to ask if we did enough, if we were as willing to take chances and to go as far as we could to change the minds of the voters of this state. How remarkable was the timing of this film's release? I only wish it could have opened a month or two earlier so that we could have used its generosity of spirit to inspire us.

Much of what I know about Harvey Milk is from the award-winning documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. Milk itself even uses some of the same footage from the earlier film. There's a twenty-year gap between the films, but both of them are valuable reminders to us of the difference that one person can make. Harvey always claimed that the movement was more important than he was, but without him, there might not have been a gay civil rights movement, certainly not in California. Milk is a potent film that deals with issues that we still face, and I hope more people have a chance to see it and learn from the example that Harvey Milk gave us.

Oscar Wins: Actor (Penn) and Original Screenplay

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (Brolin), Costume Design, Film Editing, and Original Score