Not Your Mother’s Biopic: Gus Van Sant’s Milk

Despite Harvey Milk being known internationally as a gay rights activist, the film does not sugarcoat the realities of being gay during the 1970s. Milk is discriminated against, physically injured, and loses many of the battles he fights during the years featured in the film. Similarly, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black did not write Harvey as perfect or infallible. When Harvey suggests a mass coming out as a way to fight Proposition 6 (the aim of which was to fire all gay teachers and school employees in California), many of his supporters and friends are wary of the potential invasion of privacy, and the film does not shy away from this.

Harvey’s dedication to his work and his cause once again affects his personal life in his relationship with Jack Lira (Diego Luna). Jack meets Harvey while looking for a safe place to be accepted after a disastrous coming out to his parents. They immediately begin an intensely passionate relationship, but Jack soon begins to feel slighted. Jack tries to command more and more of Harvey’s attention, until Harvey returns home ten minutes later than promised and finds Jack hanging dead from the shower curtain.

Josh Brolin as Dan White and
Sean Penn as Milk
Photo © by Phil Bray/AP/Focus Features

The characterization of Lira, however, is the film’s weakest point; the relationship feels much less genuine than Harvey’s previous relationship with Scott. Luna does a fine job, but Lira is inherently unlikable and somewhat unsympathetic. His relationship with Harvey feels somewhat rushed and forced, a point that many other characters in the film (including Scott Smith) attempt to convey to Harvey. The film, however, does achieve the desired result, which is to convince us how dedicated Harvey is, and how this makes the rest of his life suffer.

Pre-awards show buzz is already hovering around Sean Penn’s performance, and while it is strongly deserved, Josh Brolin also deserves recognition for his role as troubled fellow City Supervisor Dan White. He and Milk had a complicated relationship, both as coworkers and pseudo-friends. White was from a more conservative district, which led to some tension between the two men regarding the issues each chose to support or oppose. Brolin conveys White’s inner turmoil extremely well. He appears stoic most of the time; yet his facial expressions and words show the toll his job is taking on his psychological health. As the film progresses, we see White becoming increasingly uneasy in both his personal and professional lives. Brolin does an excellent job relaying to the audience how close White is coming to a breaking point, and when White shoots Milk and Mayor George Moscone (Victor Garber) in cold blood at the end of the film, it’s really not as shocking as it should be.

The real Harvey Milk

Throughout the film, Van Sant interweaves archival footage with newly shot film. Hippies congregating on the Haight, gay men using the Castro as a cruising spot, and other common occurrences of the time serve as a reminder that these events actually happened. Van Sant’s use of the footage is intense without being heavy-handed and functions especially well for an audience member such as me, who was not even born yet when Harvey Milk was killed. Especially moving are scenes of the final rally against Proposition 6 where Milk spoke out against Senator John Briggs, a fervent supporter of “traditional family values” and the author and advocate of Proposition 6.

In the wake of California passing Proposition 8 in November’s election, such footage is both encouraging and discouraging. It is good to know that there are people as passionate about human rights as Harvey Milk, but in thirty years, Harvey Milk’s cause has not been advanced as far as he probably would have liked. The choice to end the film with real-life footage of Milk’s mourners marching through the streets of San Francisco is a wise one. The haunting image of the mass of people holding candles makes even those of us too young to have been there feeling the loss of Harvey Milk, a person so dedicated and committed to his beliefs.

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