« My name is Harvey Milk and I want to recruit you ! »

 Yes, we want: Sean Penn manages to take us on with him in his political and sexual trip. Performing the part of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in San Francisco in 1977, Sean Penn  IS Harvey Milk. No one could deny him his Academy Award, won last February.

Gus Van Sant chooses, for his last mainstream production, to tell about the neglected story of this political leader and defender of the gay rights in the USA in the seventies. Committed, the director both follows his stylistic work and also reinvents the way of filmmaking the traditional biopic.

Indeed, there are some main ellipses, which suspend the narration in a very soft way: for example, between the meeting with Scott (James Franco) and their moving in San Francisco, we don’t see what happened – but we can imagine it. Besides, the use of film archives transcends the usual way: here, they are completely integrated into the film, not in the proper story but in the theme, in the place, in the time…

The 70’s reconstitution of the Castro, the San Francisco gay and underground area, is also very striking and effective; decor, hair, clothes, each detail is important and contributes to involve the viewer in the good atmosphere. 

Fortunately, the film is more than a simple historic picture; all the characters - Harvey Milk, his lovers, his enemy - are extremely moving. That brings about a complex feeling, both nostalgia and revolt towards that society, which engendered – but also killed – a character as strong as Harvey Milk.

Harvey Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant, with Sean Penn, James Franco and Emile Hirsch, 2009.

Comments

[stacey]

Nice review and a good start to your blog. Here are a couple of corrections: to take us on, openly gay elected official, the actor is Sean Penn, won last Feb, stylistic work, ellipses (the plural of ellipsis), integrated into, decor (always singular and uncountable), also punctuation never has a space before it in English;,: