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Film Review: Milk
Just in time before the Oscars, I took my chance to watch this, though our reporters here augur that Sean Penn is going to bet beaten by Mickey Rourke because of a) the comeback factor, and b) the fact Penn got a best leading actor award not too long ago. Be that as it may, Milk was a fantastic film, pulling off the West Wing trick of making politics feel exciting and inspiring, managing to offer a vibrant picture of a community as well as of its hero, and following the rules of the biopic without feeling by-the-numbers even once.
Firstly, the script wisely doesn't try to offer a complete life - there is no opening montage where young Harvey goes from childhood to adulthood to quickly approaching 40s. Instead, it limits itself to the 70s, and Harvey's development from discreet insurance man to political activitist; the opening montage we do get is of the various arrests, beatings and harrassments of homosexuals by the police in the 60s. This underscores something Harvey says later; it's not about the one candidate but about the movement.
The first scene we see Harvey in, by contrast, is a cheerful and private one - his chance encounter with future boyfriend Scott (James Franco) in a New York subway, where he chats him up and is so damn charming that you completely believe Scott coming with him, never mind the difference in age and prettiness. (This entire sequence from the pickup to sex to post-coital conversation manages to be sexy, relaxed and conveying so much about both characters that I have to call it one of the best film introductions I've seen.) But the personal really is also political in this movie and during that decade, as Harvey and Scott, moving to San Francisco and still finding themselves greeted by bigotry at first, quickly find out. And Harvey does something about this. It's the biopic "hero awakens to cause, has first early success, then setback and crisis of confidence, then success" formula and yet it doesn't feel formulaic at all. Not least because of the way it plays with expectations; just because Harvey prides himself on being outside the big party machines doesn't mean he's not a wily politician as well, and at one point he orchestrates a near-riot so he can then diffuse it. On the other hand, when he debates homophobic Senator Briggs in conservative Orange County where his advisors say he'll be slaughtered we expect him to sway the audience because that's how movies go (and also because Harvey is really great with crowds), but no, he does, indeed, get slaughtered and doesn't magically manage to sway the deeply conservative Orange County folk.
This is also a refreshingly cliché free film. The only character that looks like an absolute caricature isn't portrayed by an actress at all but only appears by virtue of 70s tv news footage, which was a wise decision, because as a fictionalized character, singer-turned-Christian-spokesperson Anita Bryant ("If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters") wouldn't be believed. By contrast, the man whom the film could have turned into a moustache-twirling villain, Dan White, who ends up killing Harvey and Mayor Moscone, is depicted (by Josh Brolin, and it's another excellent performance) in a way that allows the audience to feel sorry for him and see him as a three-dimensional being. This is a great ensemble film anyway, with all the actors bringing their A-game, and though for me as an Alias fan it was an unexpected treat to see Victor Garber, aka Jack Bristow, show up as Mayor Moscone, the supporting character who grabbed my attention the most was Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, whom Harvey becomes a mentor for. As far as the boyfriends were concerned, I've always had a soft spot for James Franco and here he's excellent as Scott, who breaks up with Harvey mid film but remains on his side politically; I find their post break-up scenes in which there is still much tenderness, and great knowledge of each other, but also an awareness why Scott left, paradoxically more compelling and intimate than the earlier ones of them as a couple, initial encounter excluded.
As for Sean Penn in the central role: the two roles I mostly associate with him, the murderer in Dead Man Walking and Jimmy in Mystic River, are both while different from each other so entirely different from his performance here as Harvey Milk that I really am awed. It's the endearing and charming part I wasn't prepared for, as well as the compassion. Doesn't matter whether or not he wins an award for this, it's really well done.
Firstly, the script wisely doesn't try to offer a complete life - there is no opening montage where young Harvey goes from childhood to adulthood to quickly approaching 40s. Instead, it limits itself to the 70s, and Harvey's development from discreet insurance man to political activitist; the opening montage we do get is of the various arrests, beatings and harrassments of homosexuals by the police in the 60s. This underscores something Harvey says later; it's not about the one candidate but about the movement.
The first scene we see Harvey in, by contrast, is a cheerful and private one - his chance encounter with future boyfriend Scott (James Franco) in a New York subway, where he chats him up and is so damn charming that you completely believe Scott coming with him, never mind the difference in age and prettiness. (This entire sequence from the pickup to sex to post-coital conversation manages to be sexy, relaxed and conveying so much about both characters that I have to call it one of the best film introductions I've seen.) But the personal really is also political in this movie and during that decade, as Harvey and Scott, moving to San Francisco and still finding themselves greeted by bigotry at first, quickly find out. And Harvey does something about this. It's the biopic "hero awakens to cause, has first early success, then setback and crisis of confidence, then success" formula and yet it doesn't feel formulaic at all. Not least because of the way it plays with expectations; just because Harvey prides himself on being outside the big party machines doesn't mean he's not a wily politician as well, and at one point he orchestrates a near-riot so he can then diffuse it. On the other hand, when he debates homophobic Senator Briggs in conservative Orange County where his advisors say he'll be slaughtered we expect him to sway the audience because that's how movies go (and also because Harvey is really great with crowds), but no, he does, indeed, get slaughtered and doesn't magically manage to sway the deeply conservative Orange County folk.
This is also a refreshingly cliché free film. The only character that looks like an absolute caricature isn't portrayed by an actress at all but only appears by virtue of 70s tv news footage, which was a wise decision, because as a fictionalized character, singer-turned-Christian-spokesperson Anita Bryant ("If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters") wouldn't be believed. By contrast, the man whom the film could have turned into a moustache-twirling villain, Dan White, who ends up killing Harvey and Mayor Moscone, is depicted (by Josh Brolin, and it's another excellent performance) in a way that allows the audience to feel sorry for him and see him as a three-dimensional being. This is a great ensemble film anyway, with all the actors bringing their A-game, and though for me as an Alias fan it was an unexpected treat to see Victor Garber, aka Jack Bristow, show up as Mayor Moscone, the supporting character who grabbed my attention the most was Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, whom Harvey becomes a mentor for. As far as the boyfriends were concerned, I've always had a soft spot for James Franco and here he's excellent as Scott, who breaks up with Harvey mid film but remains on his side politically; I find their post break-up scenes in which there is still much tenderness, and great knowledge of each other, but also an awareness why Scott left, paradoxically more compelling and intimate than the earlier ones of them as a couple, initial encounter excluded.
As for Sean Penn in the central role: the two roles I mostly associate with him, the murderer in Dead Man Walking and Jimmy in Mystic River, are both while different from each other so entirely different from his performance here as Harvey Milk that I really am awed. It's the endearing and charming part I wasn't prepared for, as well as the compassion. Doesn't matter whether or not he wins an award for this, it's really well done.
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Is your icon from My Beautiful Laundrette?
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I remember The Life and Times of Harvey Milk vividly, though it's years since I've seen it. It meant I got really excited at Obama's inauguration because Feinstein was doing the master of ceremonies job. Of course I'm aware that her career has advanced since those days, but my first thought on seeing her is always of the tearful woman announcing the murders to the press.
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(BTW, back then it took me a while to realize that Johnny in My Beautiful Laundrette was also Cecil in A Room with a View which if I recall correctly was released not too much later - at least in Germany it was. Daniel Day-Lewis, you were and are fantastic.)
They use that clip of her announcing the murders right at the start of the film; I hadn't seen it before, and it was something of a shock to see her so young, as it always is when you associate people with their later-day appearance.
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One thing we liked about it was that it was romantic without being sentimental; there was something about the gay theme which meant they could go much further in that direction without turning me off with soppiness.
I think I saw Daniel Day-Lewis in about four things before I managed to recognise him; I knew he was the same actor, but he seemed to look completely different every time. That doesn't apply now; whether I just got sufficiently accustomed to his face to recognise him, or whether they decided he was such a draw there was no point not making him recognisable, I don't know.
With me, I suppose, the Feinstein shock is the other way round, like seeing a middle-aged Warnecke!
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I'm very glad you enjoyed it as much as I did. So your companion was unspoiled? Well, except for the beginning giving the death away, of course...
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I wondered if the woman behind us had forgotten the set-up by the time we got there, because she seemed so shaken when it actually happened (both times). Probably she was just so caught up in the story that the shootings retained their shock value even with foreknowledge.