Milk

Movie, 2008, R

Premise - The biopic of real-life gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The nation's first openly gay man to be elected into government, Milk was assassinated in 1978 by another government official. This film focuses much less on the assassination, and more on the spectacularly brave and inspiring life this man lived, along with his many campaign members who became a surrogate family.

Review - I may have made a mistake watching this film. Hear me out. I had to get up early the next morning to go on a long road trip, and thought to myself, "Oh, I'll just watch a little bit of a movie before I go to sleep early!" and started this film. I saw that it was over 2 hours, but just figured if it was worth watching, I'd finish the rest later. As it turns out, this was one of the best films I had seen in a long time and I could not get myself to stop watching and fall asleep. And then I stayed up thinking about the film afterwards and what a masterpiece it was.

Immediately as I began the film, I was already captivated by the music. I saw in the opening credits that the musical score was done by Danny Elfman, another one of my favorite composers where I always think, "Who did this music? It sounds so good! Oh, Danny Elfman, that explains it." After a great start with archival footage of the gay rights movement, the film only went up from there.

The film was directed by Gus Van Sant. After having such a positive, visceral reaction to the film, I had to know what other films this man directed. As it turns out, the only other film I have seen by him is Elephant, which I consider to be the most disturbing and uncomfortable film I had ever seen and never, ever want to re-visit. I don't think Milk and Elephant could be any more different stylistically and I am stunned that they were directed by the same individual. While Elephant is uncomfortably realistic, Milk takes a much more aesthetically pleasing approach, despite its rough and tragic content matter.

I knew who Harvey Milk was in a basic sense. I knew he was a gay rights activist. I knew his was shot and killed. And that is where my knowledge ends. Therefore, I cannot speak to the accuracy of the film's events, though I trust in the filmmakers. Afterwards, the film made me wonder why we celebrate other famous martyrs (one example is Martin Luther King, who died in the name of Civil Rights), learn about them in schools, and even have holidays dedicated to them, but other martyrs like Harvey Milk never are mentioned. I wouldn't have known who Harvey Milk was at all if it wasn't for the fact that Lucas Grabeel from High School Musical was in this film, so I had looked it up out of curiosity. That is honestly the most millenially shallow reason to know who he is. Not once was the man mentioned throughout my sixteen years of education, and I consider that to be horrific.

I never want to forget this man. I never want to forget what he fought and died for. This film made me sob in the middle of the night and will have a forever lasting impact on me. (98/100)

Quote - "All men are created equal. No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words."

What to watch for - This film was nominated for multiple Oscars, and won two. One of the awards went to Sean Penn for Best Actor, and my goodness he deserved it! Such a fantastic performance as Harvey Milk.

If you liked this movie, I'd recommend Kill Your Darlings!

Directed by Gus Van Sant
Distributed by Focus Features