Gus Van Sant's celebration of gay pride is unexpectedly uplifting, writes Donald Clarke
THE cheerleaders are correct. Gus Van Sant’s study of Harvey Milk, perhaps the most significant openly gay politician in American history, is a truly pioneering piece of work. Raise a cheer. A director has finally managed to sit on Sean Penn – too often a stranger to nuance – and persuade him to exercise a degree of restraint. “Take that scenery out of your mouth, Sean,” Gus may have said. “There’s only room in the world for one Brian Blessed.” Now, that’s a step forward, all right.
I'm being somewhat facetious, of course. We have, it is true, seen quite a few mainstream films concerning gay life, but too often those pictures have portrayed their heroes as tortured depressives whose daily lives are characterised by deceit and guilt. ( Brokeback Mountainand Far from Heavenare contemporary classics, but no sane person would envy the gay characters their dreary lot.)
Milkbreaks its fresh ground by offering the popcorn-eating demographic an unapologetic celebration of what was, in the early 1970s, still an emerging culture. It is deeply ironic that, despite its focusing on a politician who died by assassination, Milknever feels like a story about victims.
Van Sant's picture, shot in shallow tableaux and using occasional trick shots, follows Milkas he moves from New York, where he worked in the insurance industry, to a San Francisco that was just finding its identity as the unashamed gay capital of the US. After establishing a camera store in the Castro district, Harvey gets drawn into local politics and, following several election defeats, eventually manages to become a city supervisor.
He has some minor successes, such as the early introduction of an ordinance instructing dog owners to clean up their mutts’ mess. He has some great triumphs, such as the defeat of a right-wing effort to fire all gay teachers. Then, in the winter of 1978, Dan White, an aggrieved conservative colleague, assassinates Milk and George Moscone, the city’s admired mayor.
So, this is a film containing tragedies. Harvey is not the only character to die young, and the quiet misery that comes with intolerance is often touched upon. But Van Sant, rarely the sunniest of directors, is to be praised for delivering a film that radiates unexpected degrees of warmth.
As Milk and his pals transform the Castro, their faces glow with the happy knowledge that, here, for the first time in the nation’s history, a gay community has secured the opportunity to be both singular and ordinary. San Francisco looks gorgeous and Penn – hitherto a specialist in angst and rage – reveals that he has the capacity to embody kindness and good will. Emile Hirsch and James Franco do equally fine work as fellow activists.
The film even manages to put some affection the way of Dan White. Josh Brolin, suddenly the actor of the moment, allows us to believe that Milk’s eventual murderer had it in him to a be a better man. The details of his motivations in killing Milk and Moscone are deliberately kept obscure, but, from the beginning, we sense a painful unease in the boozy Irish-American. He wants to like Milk, but knows that some ancient dictum forbids such a friendship.
Sadly, Van Sant and Dustin Lance Black, his screenwriter, do allow a degree of sentimentality and corniness to creep in during the last act. The attempt to draw parallels between Harvey’s story and that of Puccini’s Tosca is unforgivably clunky, and the artistic editorialising that accompanies Milk’s death would shame even Oliver Stone.
That disappointment noted, Milkemerges as a rare biopic that argues forcefully for its hero's virtues without ever drifting into hagiography. Seldom has such a sad story proved quite so cheering.
