Milk

Using flashbacks from a statement recorded late in life and archival footage for atmosphere, this film traces Harvey Milk’s career from his 40th birthday to his death. He leaves the closet and New York, opens a camera shop that becomes the salon for San Francisco’s growing gay community, and organizes gays’ purchasing power to build political alliances.

He runs for office with lover Scott Smith as his campaign manager. Victory finally comes on the same day Dan White wins in the city’s conservative district. The rest of the film sketches Milk’s relationship with White and the 1978 fight against a state wide initiative to bar gays and their supporters from public school jobs.

 

 

Luck brought me this film, sitting on a plane with a choice between this, some film about shopping or the two films I had enjoyed 2 days previously on the trip to Toronto I sat back to watch. Films of this nature are normally made to shock to and get people talking, now I know it may be a bit stereotypical but they are. Milk is different, where the world sat up for 4 months after we watched Hanks die in Philadelphia, or the unmentionable camping scene in Broke Back created hours of playground banter, Milk touches on exactly what happened to form the gay rights movement.

You meet the man in New York, he has a good job, but he is not happy. So he meets a guy and moves across the coast, and starts a new life. He almost single handedly creates a united region in a large city which was free from persecution, so the cops beat on them at times and murders still happened, it was a free neighbourhood.

And with this movement came power, other smaller groups looked at this man Milk and join him to create stronger movement of civil rights. Highlighted in the film just quickly with the efforts that went into toppling the biggest brewer in North America, if only for a short time.

The great thing about this film is the enthusiasm that the story is told with. Milk recorded his life onto audio tape in case he was assassinated.

Sean Penn won the Oscar for Best Actor, but lets face it that has not meant much in recent years, until now. Being diluted by poor wins and political nominations Penn creates this mesmerising person on the screen that is up there with the greatest of the greats, and should be awarded the actor of the decade.

Take time out. Sit down and learn from this film. Enjoy it for the light hearted moments of a love film that inter winds with deep political commentary, and revel in the magnificence of Penn. This truly is the surprise hit of recent times.

DVD Extras

-Deleted Scenes

-Remembering Harvey feature

-Hollywood Comes to San Francisco

-Marching for Equality

-Trailers

 

~Review by Alex

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