By Mark Hemingway
http://www.nationalreview.com/
December 04, 2008, 4:00 a.m.
Sean Penn as Harvey Milk
It doesn’t really matter what the general public thinks of Gus Van Sant’s new film Milk, chronicling the life of gay activist Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to major public office in the U.S. It hits theaters guaranteed to clean up at Oscar time and the critical reception is . . . well, here’s Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post:
Once in a while, a movie arrives at such a perfect moment, its message and meaning so finely tuned to the current zeitgeist, that it seems less a cinematic event than a cosmic convergence, willed into being by a once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the stars.
Aside from the embarrassing hyperbole, the suggestion that the movie “arrives at such a perfect moment” is laughable, given that gay-rights activists and film-industry types complained about the movie being released after Election Day and the California decision on Proposition 8.
“[I] can’t help but wonder what Milk might have meant for today’s cause, if anything, had it landed in the marketplace last month,” wrote one blogger at popular film website In Contention. The Hollywood Reporter sparked furor with a story claiming that Focus Features, the studio releasing Milk, was “eschewing publicity for the gay-themed movie” because it was afraid the Prop 8 controversy would hurt the film’s chances — a claim that prompted an angry denial from Focus head James Schamus, the producer of Brokeback Mountain.
In other words, there was a lot of debate pre-release about whether the film had a sufficiently political agenda. Well, it does: the entire last act centers on Harvey Milk’s activism against Proposition 6, a 1978 initiative which would have banned gay teachers in California schools. The film is at pains to drive home parallels between Prop 6 and Prop 8, historically relevant or not. In reality, Proposition 6 was a poorly written law that that would have effectively legalized witch hunts, banning teachers who even supported other gay teachers. Both Jimmy Carter and sensible conservatives led by former governor Ronald Reagan opposed the law, which ultimately failed at the ballot. In terms of its legislative absurdity and popular support, Prop 6 and Prop 8 aren’t really comparable.
So Milk is a highly charged political film, which seems to have distracted people like Ann Hornaday from asking more relevant questions. Is it a good movie? Does it fairly represent Harvey Milk’s life and accomplishments? The answers to those questions are maybe and absolutely not, respectively.
Not all of the hype over the film is unjustified. The cinematography successfully evokes San Francisco in the 1970s, and the cast is uniformly excellent. Too often, actors play gay roles with overdone affectation; here, Penn disappears into the title role and turns in an incredible performance. Penn isn’t known for being a likable character on screen or off — but as Harvey Milk, he’s charismatic and disarming. He’s also buoyed by a series of excellent supporting performances from James Franco, Diego Luna, and Emile Hirsch, among others. Doubtless, you will hear more about the film’s performances as awards season nears.
But the strength of the film’s performances and the zeal that has greeted the film’s politics seems to have distracted everyone from noticing that the script is remarkably weak. Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black — a former Mormon missionary who’s now out and proud — is a hot Hollywood commodity on the strength of Milk, and it boggles the mind why.
The film borrows most of its structure — centering on the real-life, tape-recorded message Milk left behind in the event that he was killed — from the 1984 documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. The final scene, in which Milk is assassinated by one of his fellow San Francisco city supervisors is the hamfisted and melodramatic culmination of a lazy and obvious series of references to Milk’s love of opera that one can see coming a mile away. Telegraphed punches rarely land with force.
Further, the film repeatedly speculates, without any evidence whatsoever, that Milk’s financially ruined and mentally unstable assassin is a closeted homosexual. In ascribing motive, its plot resorts to a tiresome and baseless pop-culture meme that anyone opposed to homosexuality — or even to a story’s gay protagonist — must be a “closet case.” (Not that I expect the meme to die anytime soon; look for Haggard to land in theaters the next time a major gay-rights initiative is on a state ballot.)
The script sidesteps any and all moral dilemmas that might arise from examining, well, the life and times of the Harvey Milk — a man who was as polarizing as he was charismatic. Milk is less a biopic than a hagiography. Which is unfortunate.
Even a cursory examination of Harvey Milk’s life confirms that he was hardly a saint, and a film seeking to emphasize Milk’s positive achievements need not sacrifice its integrity in this regard. Whatever one thinks of the morality of homosexuality, the violence against gays that was once commonplace even in San Francisco was reprehensible, and Milk was an effective voice against it. Further, much of the criticism of homosexuality being lobbed at the time was uncharitable and unchristian, and as a national public figure, Milk put a sympathetic face on gay America.
On the other hand, the notion that this film — much less a more honest portrayal of Harvey Milk — would somehow have won votes for gay marriage is laughable. The film, probably accurately, doesn’t shy away from the promiscuity of the characters involved. Men hop into bed together literally at first sight. Indeed, one of Milk’s election promises noted in the film was his public announcement that he would no longer visit San Francisco’s famed bathhouses. Hmmm. No longer seeking out anonymous sex with multiple partners even while living with a longtime companion? What a concession to respectability.
Because the film is so myopically focused on justifying Milk’s political crusades, it doesn’t begin to get at who exactly Milk was as a person. The film doesn’t mention he was a Korean war veteran with a respectable military career, serving as a diver in the Navy a few years after the war ended. He was a Republican who worked on Barry Goldwater’s campaign — and initially decided to run for office not simply to advance gay rights but in a fit of pique over San Francisco’s business taxes on his camera store. In fact, the film barely even alludes to what he had done before he turned 40.
Even with the focus on Milk’s political accomplishments, the film still runs from the truth. One of Milk’s signature issues was encouraging gay men and women to come out — he felt that, if more Americans realized they had personal relationships with homosexuals, it would advance their cause. The film includes a tense scene where Milk pressures a friend into going into the next room to call his father and come out. (Later, Milk’s former lover chastises him for being a hypocrite, as he never came out to his mother while she was alive.) But the film passes over in silence an infamous “outing” episode in Milk’s life.
In 1975, while President Ford was visiting San Francisco, Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot the president. A bystander, a former Marine named Oliver Sipple, grabbed her arm and her shot hit the pavement, possibly saving the president’s life. Milk knew Sipple — he was the former lover of one of Milk’s former lovers, Joe Campbell — and Milk wanted to out him, hoping that Sipple’s heroism would burnish the gay image. Sipple was openly gay, and he participated in gay-pride events — but he asked Milk not to out him in the wake of his heroic act. Milk did it anyway, and Sipple eventually sued the San Francisco Chronicle for invasion of privacy. The film barely acknowledges how questionable many of Milk’s tactics were — which is odd, considering that the ethics of outing are still hotly debated in the gay community today.
Instead, Milk portrays its protagonist as someone who did nothing but help people, with barely a nod to how abrasive and self-serving he could be. Every time Milk the man gets in the way of Milk the political message, moral ambiguities and inconvenient facts get steamrolled.
Which is why the film’s political message is effectively lost on those who aren’t pro–gay rights coming in. Milk presents one version of events for viewers to accept or reject. And since the film suggests that Harvey Milk was an angel and everyone opposed to him or to gay rights is a closet case or a crazy fundamentalist — well, good luck winning people over.
While Penn and his co-stars’ performances are exemplary, Milk isn’t nearly as good as its hype. Oh, it will collect its fair share of awards. The March Oscar ceremony will doubtless be an insufferable parade of moral superiority, as the movie-industry lets America know that it voted for Milk as a statement against the rubes who voted for Proposition 8. But in the end, Hollywood doesn’t speak for America. As much as it pains me to dampen Ann Hornaday’s expectations for the film, the only “once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the stars” Milk will array is within the ranks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
— Mark Hemingway is an NRO staff reporter.
No comments:
Post a Comment