 | MilkMonday 7th December, start time 8:15 Reel Cinema, Andover Release: 2008 (Cert 15) Directors: Gus Van Sant Cast: Sean Penn (Oscar winning performance) Review: Here Andover Film Club’s next presentation is “Milk” (cert 15), which tells the story of Harvey Milk, who in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to public office in the US. The showing will be in the Reel Cinema at 815pm on Monday December 7th. Directed by Gus Van Sant and released in 2008, the film won two Oscars, including Best Actor for Sean Penn in the lead role. “Milk” reminds us that just thirty years ago prejudice and violence against gays was openly accepted as the norm even in the most cosmopolitan US cities. The use of archive newsreel footage enhances the film’s realism, and it inevitably challenges the audience to address their own views. An important piece of cinema and not to be missed. As always, the film is open to the public as well as club members. |
Reviews & Comments Received | Review submitted by Hans van Well: POTENTIAL SPOILER ALERT!! It’s no secret that Milk is the story of the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America. And it’s no secret that Harvey Milk was murdered within a year of taking that office. Director Gus van Sant gets this bit out of the way early, concentrating instead on how Milk rose to become one of San Francisco’s supervisors. It’s the seventies. It’s the time for gay activists, Harvey included, to come out of the closet and show that homosexuality is neither evil nor a disease. It’s the time to fight Proposition Six, a law intended to ban gays from working as teachers. And it’s an opportunity for the film to take the Gay Rights movement as a metaphor for all sorts of pioneering campaigns against injustice and inequality. Gus van Sant takes on the challenge, using Milk’s story to show how straight-laced, ordinary people of the period replaced their suits with denim and grew beards; how they joined movements and took on the establishment; how they developed a counter-culture before fighting to merge it into the mainstream. But he tells the story in a linear fashion that’s short of dramatic highs and lows, however logical the approach. He also makes Harvey Milk out to be a bit of a saint. The younger, office-worker Milk, played with gusto by Sean Penn, likes to pick up young men in subways, for example. The only time he does this, in this version, turns into a happy accidental meeting with someone who’ll become the love of his life, Scottie. James Franco’s portrayal of Scottie matches Penn blow for blow when they’re on screen together. And make no mistake, Penn is excellent. His mannerisms seem real – a balanced mixture of camp and virility which never reaches caricature. It’s an energetic and engaging performance and you can’t help liking the guy. Van Sant’s bias shows again in the stand-off between Milk and co-supervisor Dan White (immaculately played by Josh Brolin). There’s a dark side to Harvey Milk, a fanatical side. Van Sant depicts this as ‘needs must’ and backs off from exploring any character negatives. Actually, the relationship between Milk and White is crucial to the story. After all, White is the ex-cop who turns slayer. But van Sant would rather spend time showing us the light hearted Harvey picking up an outrageously mixed-up pretty boy, Jack Lira (Diego Luna), than explore the tension and attraction between the key protagonists. White is a kind of short-hand for the bigoted Right. The film would have been better balanced with more about him and his strange fascination with Milk. Though never boring, Milk never quite hits the spot. It evokes the period accurately, has much humour and much to admire. It’s believable. The final set piece, a massive candle-lit procession, is one of the few scenes to demand a big screen. I came out of the cinema feeling that I had just watched an important story told by an unimportant film.
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Milk - December 7th
