Sweetened, Condensed Milk

The Oscar movie season kicks into high gear this week with the release of Milk, Gus Van Sant’s biopic of Harvey Milk, the businessman and politician who in 1976 became the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States when he joined San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. Milk was instrumental in the city’s fight for gay rights, pushing for a bill that outlawed discrimination in housing and unemployment based on sexual orientation, and playing a key role in marshalling popular opposition against Proposition 6 (aka “the Briggs initiative”), which would have made homosexuality a firing offence among California schoolteachers. Milk was at the height of his power and influence when he and gay-friendly San Francisco mayor George Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, an embittered former political colleague.

Milk is Van Sant’s first mainstream film after several formally adventurous arthouse experiments including Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park, and it also contains an unusually buoyant performance from Sean Penn as the free-spirited, charismatic Milk. I caught a screening of the film with fellow SEE film reviewer Michael Hingston, after which we sat down to share our impressions...

Paul Matwychuk: I think I had a leg up on you with this movie, since I recently watched the 1984 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk and so knew a little bit about Milk’s life and career going into it.

Michael Hingston: Right. I had read a Wikipedia entry or two about him, and that was about it. But it was obvious even from that how urgent and relevant this story was, what with Proposition 8, the anti-same-sex marriage bill, passing in California last month.

PM: Both this film and the documentary do an excellent job of explaining the Briggs initiative and the very real threat it posed to gay people’s civil rights, and what an incredible, almost ahead-of-its-time victory over prejudice and narrow-mindedness Harvey Milk helped achieve. This fight took place only 30 years ago, and yet it has nowhere near the cultural prominence of, say, the black civil rights movement or the suffragettes. It’s alarming to think how close that initiative came to passing.

MH: Part of what’s so horrifying about it is that Milk was having to fight the repeal of existing legislation — gay citizens’ big fear wasn’t that they weren’t making progress, but that they might actually lose the gains they’d fought so hard to win already. There’s a nice moment in the film where Emile Hirsch’s character, this young activist who works in Milk’s office, talks about a gay rally he saw in Spain, and how in awe he was of the way the Spaniards incited a riot at the first signs of police infringement. He wonders why they can’t get the same kind of thing going in North America. And with Proposition 8 having gone through, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow — in 2008, even what you guys are doing seems kind of out of reach.”

PM: One of the things that interested me most about the film is that it’s Gus Van Sant’s first truly commercial movie since Finding Forrester in 2000. It’s a big Hollywood biopic about an important social theme with a major actor in the lead role. And it’s coming out late in the year and is obviously being positioned for Oscar season. And I guess the disappointing thing about Milk for me is how closely it adheres to the conventional biopic formula. There are a couple of energetic visual ideas here and there, but given Van Sant’s recent films and with the great cinematographer Harris Savides behind the camera, I was really hoping for something more stylistically adventurous.

MH: Do you think that this film managed to convey more than the documentary did?

PM: Well, there are a couple of interesting visual flourishes that you wouldn’t get in a documentary, like the entire scene that’s shot in the reflection of a metal police whistle lying on the ground. And I think Van Sant’s film gives you more a sense of Milk’s private, romantic life than you get in the documentary. My recollection is that the documentary largely ignores Milk’s lover Jack Lira, the figure played by Diego Luna, who is this very high-maintenance, demanding guy who’s obviously an inappropriate boyfriend for someone holding public office.

MH: One of Milk’s big points was that every gay person should come out — the logic being that it will help “normalize” homosexuality in straight society, and that if you know someone who’s gay, you’ll be less likely to vote to take away their rights. But I have to say, I was not really that interested in Milk’s private life. I thought Luna was a lot of fun, and I liked James Franco’s performance as Milk’s first boyfriend a lot too, but I found the political story much more interesting. Milk is always fighting this battle of “How do I convince not just people in the heartland of America, but people in my own district to vote with me?”

PM: I liked the meet-cute scenes with the two boyfriends — that opening scene where he picks up Franco in the subway station is very sweet, and the scene where Luna stumbles into Milk’s store yammering on about palomino horses is very cute and sexy too. But I still feel like I’ve seen that Franco character before in so many hetero biopics — he’s the equivalent of the wife who wishes the great man would spend some quality time at home instead of obsessing about changing the world. Those scenes with the gay kid in the wheelchair who keeps phoning Harvey Milk out of nowhere to convince him to keep fighting? Or the flashback after Milk gets shot to the earlier scene of him in bed with Franco? I was amazed to see that corny stuff in a Van Sant movie.

MH: The biggest convention that I had a problem with was the way Dan White begins the film as this amazingly conflicted and nuanced character who runs for office using the most inflammatory, homophobic language possible, but who immediately tones it down after getting elected. There’s a really convincing gradual thaw in his attitude toward Milk — but then, as the drama builds to his killing of Milk and Moscone, he’s reduced to this paragon of irrationality. I thought there was a missed opportunity to make him a masterpiece of an antagonist instead of simply a villain.

PM: And yet, Brolin is excellent in the role. In the last couple of years, he’s really assembled a pretty amazing string of interesting, nuanced, surprising performances. Not long ago, we talked about him in W., and how he brought a lot of shadings to a character that might not have had much depth on the page. What did you think of Sean Penn?

MH: It’s kind of a backhanded insult to him, but he’s kind of “obviously great” in this movie. He is great, but the whole cast is really strong. The actors playing his inner circle are especially interesting. Emile Hirsch has a great role — he pops up about 45 minutes into the movie when Sean Penn catcalls him off-camera while he’s trying to get people to register to vote, and he unexpectedly develops into the admiral behind Milk’s campaign. Franco is great, and Brolin is truly excellent — I think he would have risen to any heights that part could have demanded of him. I also really liked this actress, Allison Pill, who plays the lesbian who comes in to run Milk’s office. There’s an amazing scene where she shows up in this all-male office and says, “All my friends say you hate women. Is there room for a woman here?” And suddenly it’s like there’s this crack opening up, where you realize the fight for gay rights may not have been as unified as you’d think.

PM: Do you think this film will be another crossover hit, like Brokeback Mountain? I’m a little dubious myself. Brokeback Mountain really delivered the tears along with the anti-homophobia message, but Milk seems more like one of those prestige movies people get guilted into seeing because it’s gotten a lot of Oscar nominations.

MH: It’s also not very controversial. It’s a biopic that sticks to history; it’s hard to make a controversy out of that. How about this: if Milk wins Best Picture, will you be upset?

PM: I would be happy to see a Gus Van Sant movie win an Oscar. It would be nice to see the Academy embrace a director who’s been doing excellent work for years and years, much of it way out of the mainstream. But I’m sure there must be better movies to honour this year besides Milk.

MH: True, but it’s a solid biopic about a relevant issue. The Oscars could do far worse — and if it keeps Changeling off the ticket, all the better.