Ah, the times we live in. We like to think our society is more enlightened than the one that existed 30 years ago, and for the most part it is. A black man is going to be the next president of the United States of America, after all. But every now and then we’re given an ugly reminder that there’s a lot of enlightening left to do. Case in point: Proposition 8, the California ballot proposition which took back that state’s allowance of gay marriage. Yes, when we are a nation at war with two different countries, it is most important to prevent two people who love each other from getting married.
Back in the 1970’s, Harvey Milk (played in this film by Sean Penn) faced some problems in the state of California as well. His road to becoming the first openly gay elected official was not an easy one. Harvey didn’t intend to become a politician; he moved to California to open up a camera shop with his lover Scott Smith (James Franco), but met with so much bigotry and oppression that he felt the need to challenge the status quo. Thus began a fateful, fatal, completely unexpected detour in one man’s life.
Of course, not everyone was happy with Harvey’s attempts at revolution. Not only was he gay, he was also a long-haired, hippie freak. After several losing attempts to run for city supervisor, Milk steps up his game and cleans up his image. He devotes himself totally to the political machine, which wins him as much support as it loses. He amasses a large group of supporters from the San Francisco gay community, including future activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), but Scott is sick of his incessant campaigning and leaves him. Harvey’s next lover, Jack Lira (Diego Luna), is unstable and at one point threatens to commit suicide if Harvey won’t put their relationship over his politics.
Milk is an engaging portrayal of a man caught between his personal life and his activism, his politics and his sexual orientation. Much to director Gus Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black’s credit, this isn’t a treacly biopic which treats its hero with so much reverence that he becomes a symbol instead of a person. Milk wasn’t a saint, and the movie shows his flaws while also documenting his deserved cultural importance.
Van Sant and Black make his political career a dynamic and endlessly entertaining journey, from the joys to the sorrows and everything in between. But the joy that is most evident is Van Sant’s. Here he’s a maestro behind the camera, conducting urgently and inventively, and with excellent cinematographer Harris Savides, he makes the film soar. It’s a big, impressive effort which is colorful but never glitzy, dazzling us with its technique without ever becoming showy. Simply put, this film places Van Sant among the elite.
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