I saw Milk in San Francisco down in The Castro Theatre. There was more energy in that screening than almost any I have ever seen. The only things I can compare it to are midnight screenings for genre pictures such as The Dark Knight and Harry Potter. Harvey Milk lived and worked for the San Francisco borough known as The Castro. It’s obvious sitting in the theatre how much Harvey Milk mattered to this community.
Sean Penn was able to capture the spirit of Milk and invoke the need for equality. It is in the modern time of Prop Eight that this film gains new relevance. Milk’s message is as relevant as ever. When you compare actual footage of Harvey Milk with Sean Penn it becomes hard to distinguish the differences between the two of them. Penn does what most actors could not. He shows Milk for who he was, instead of becoming a characterization of the man.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences previously honored The Times of Harvey Milk with the best documentary Oscar in 1984. It is obviously a main source of reference for the Gus Van Sant film. The two films actually share some of the same archival footage. By opening Milk with some of this footage the film is given an immediate amount of credibility.
The last three films cinematographer Harris Savides and Gus Van Sant collaborated on lacked a central narrative, which is why Milk offers a new view of what the pair is capable. Savides blends his imagery with the stock footage to create the illusion of the 1970s. Interviews in The Life and Times of Harvey Milk were shot without any real manipulation. Savides attempts to create a modernized view of the time period by using the imagery already engraved in his audiences’ minds by showing what the past was actually like.
Milk is a bio-pic made in the great tradition of classic bio-pics although production apparently started with an entirely different style in mind. Gus Van Sant originally wanted to employ a cinéma vérité technique. Would that have made a better film? I’m not sure. The standard approach used on Milk is not bad. It may not be the most unique movie of all time but it achieves what it sets out to do by illuminating the life of the man known as Harvey Milk. If you have an interest in him, I would recommend searching out The Times of Harvey Milk as well as the movie currently in theaters, because both films are made better by the other. They are a pair of cinematic triumphs. Each illuminates more about a man who was willing to give everything to further the equality of people in our nation.
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