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Milk is a 2008 biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the film stars Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Milk's assassin, Supervisor Dan White. The film was released to much acclaim and earned numerous accolades from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, it received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, winning two for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Penn and Best Original Screenplay for Dustin Lance Black.
Attempts to put Milk's life to film followed a 1984 Oscar-winning documentary of his life and the aftermath of his assassination, titled The Times of Harvey Milk, which was loosely based upon Randy Shilts' biography, The Mayor of Castro Street.
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Encyclopedia
Milk is a 2008 biographical film on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Directed by Gus Van Sant, the film stars Sean Penn as Milk and Josh Brolin as Milk's assassin, Supervisor Dan White. The film was released to much acclaim and earned numerous accolades from film critics and guilds. Ultimately, it received eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, winning two for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Penn and Best Original Screenplay for Dustin Lance Black.
Attempts to put Milk's life to film followed a 1984 Oscar-winning documentary of his life and the aftermath of his assassination, titled The Times of Harvey Milk, which was loosely based upon Randy Shilts' biography, The Mayor of Castro Street. Various scripts were considered in the early 1990s, but projects fell through for different reasons, until 2007. Much of Milk was filmed on Castro Street and various locations in San Francisco, including Milk's former storefront, Castro Camera.
Milk begins on Harvey Milk's 40th birthday, when he was living in New York City and had not yet settled in San Francisco. It chronicles his foray into city politics, and the various battles he waged in the Castro neighborhood as well as throughout the city, and political campaigns to limit the rights of gay people in 1977 and 1978 run by Anita Bryant and John Briggs. His romantic and political relationships are also addressed, as is his tenuous affiliation with troubled Supervisor Dan White; the film ends with White's double murder of Milk and Mayor George Moscone. The film's release was tied to the 2008 California voter referendum on gay marriage, Proposition 8, when it made its premiere at the Castro Theater two weeks before election day.
Plot summary
Milk opens with archival footage of police raiding gay bars and arresting patrons during the 1950s and 1960s, followed by Dianne Feinstein's November 27, 1978, announcement to the press that Milk and Moscone have been assassinated. Milk is seen recording his will throughout the film, nine days (November 18, 1978) before the assassinations. The film then flashes back to New York City in 1970, the eve of Milk's 40th birthday and his first meeting with his much younger lover, Scott Smith.
Unsatisfied with his life and in need of a change, Milk and Smith decide to move to San Francisco in the hope of finding larger acceptance of their relationship. They open Castro Camera in the heart of Eureka Valley, a working class neighborhood in the process of evolving into a predominantly gay neighborhood known as The Castro. Frustrated by the opposition they encounter in the once Irish-Catholic neighborhood, Milk utilizes his background as a businessman to become a gay activist, eventually becoming a mentor for Cleve Jones. Early on, Smith serves as Milk's campaign manager, but his frustration grows with Milk's obsessive devotion to politics, and he leaves him. Milk later meets Jack Lira, a sweet-natured but unbalanced young man. As with Smith, however, Lira cannot tolerate Milk's devotion to political activism, and eventually hangs himself.
After two unsuccessful political campaigns in 1973 and 1975 to become a city supervisor and a third in 1976 for the California State Assembly, Milk finally wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 for District 5. His victory makes him the first openly gay man to be voted into major public office in the United States. Milk subsequently meets fellow Supervisor Dan White, a Vietnam veteran and former police officer and firefighter. White, who is politically and socially conservative, has a difficult relationship with Milk. He has a growing resentment for Milk, largely due to the attention paid to Milk by the press and his colleagues.
Milk and White forge a complex working relationship. Milk is invited to, and attends, the christening of White's first child, and White asks for Milk's assistance in preventing a psychiatric hospital from opening in White's district, possibly in exchange for White's support of Milk's citywide gay rights ordinance. When Milk fails to support White, White feels betrayed, and ultimately becomes the sole vote against the gay rights ordinance. Milk also launches an effort to defeat Proposition 6, an initiative on the California state ballot in November 1978. Sponsored by John Briggs, a conservative state legislator from Orange County, Proposition 6 seeks to ban gays and lesbians (in addition to anyone who supports them) from working in California's public schools. It is also part of a nationwide conservative movement that starts with the successful campaign headed by Anita Bryant and her organization Save Our Children in Dade County, Florida to repeal a local gay rights ordinance.
On November 7, 1978, after working tirelessly against Proposition 6, Milk and his supporters rejoice in the wake of its defeat. The increasingly unstable White is in favor of a supervisor pay raise, but does not get much support, and shortly after supporting the proposition, resigns from the Board. He later changes his mind and asks the city to rescind his decision. Mayor Moscone denies his request, after having been lobbied by Milk to not reinstate White.
On the morning of November 27, 1978, White enters San Francisco City Hall through a basement window to conceal a gun from metal detectors. He requests another meeting with Moscone, who rebuffs his request for re-appointment. Enraged, White shoots Moscone and then Milk. The film suggests that Milk believed that White might be a closeted gay man.
The film ends with an aerial shot of the candlelight vigil held by thousands for Milk and Moscone throughout the streets of the city.
Cast
A number of Milk's associates, including speechwriter Frank M. Robinson, Teamster Allan Baird and school teacher-turned-politician Tom Ammiano portrayed themselves. Additionally, Carol Ruth Silver, who served with Milk on the Board of Supervisors, plays a small role.
Production
In early 1991, Oliver Stone was planning to produce, but not direct, a movie on Milk's life; he wrote a script for the movie, called The Mayor of Castro Street. In July 1992, director Gus Van Sant was signed with Warner Bros. to direct the biopic with actor Robin Williams in the lead role. By April 1993, Van Sant parted ways with the studio, citing creative differences. Other actors considered for Harvey Milk at time were Richard Gere, Daniel Day-Lewis and James Woods In April 2007, the director sought to direct the biopic based on a script by Dustin Lance Black, while at the same time, director Bryan Singer was developing The Mayor of Castro Street, which had been in development hell. By the following September, Sean Penn was attached to play Harvey Milk and Matt Damon was attached to play Milk's assassin, Dan White. Damon pulled out later in September due to scheduling conflicts. By November, Focus Features moved forward with Van Sant's production, Milk, while Singer's project ran into trouble with the writers' strike. In December 2007, actors Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, Alison Pill, and James Franco joined Milk, with Brolin replacing Damon as Dan White. Milk began filming on location in San Francisco in January 2008.
Filmmakers researched San Francisco's history in the city's Gay and Lesbian Archives and talked to people who knew Milk to shape their approach to the era. They also revisited the location of Milk's camera shop on Castro Street and dressed the street to match the film's 1970s setting. The camera shop, which had become a gift shop, was bought out by filmmakers for a couple of months to use in production. Production on Castro Street also revitalized the Castro Theatre, whose facade was repainted and whose neon marquee was redone. Filming also took place at the San Francisco City Hall, while White's office, where Milk was assassinated, was recreated elsewhere due to the city hall's offices having become more modern. Filmmakers also intended to show a view of the San Francisco Opera House from the redesign of White's office. Filming finished March 2008.
Release
In the month leading up to Milk's release, Focus Features kept the film out of fall film festivals and restricted media screenings, seeking to briefly avoid word-of-mouth and the partisanship it could generate. Milk premiered in San Francisco on October 28, 2008, initiating a marketing dilemma that Focus Features struggled to face due to the film's subject matter. The studio hoped to stay above the politics of the ongoing general elections, especially California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8, which parallels the anti-gay rights Proposition 6 that is explored in the film.
Regardless, many reviewers and pundits have noted that the highly acclaimed film has taken on a new significance after the successful passage of Proposition 8 as a galvanizing point of honoring a major gay political and historical figure who would have strongly opposed the measure. Activists called on Focus Features to pull the film from the Cinemark Theatres chain as part of a series of boycotts because Cinemark's chief executive, Alan Stock, donated $9,999 to the Yes on 8 campaign.
In the United States, Milk was given a limited release on November 26, 2008, and expanded to additional theaters each of the following weekends to a maximum of 882 screens. The film made the top 10 box office list on its opening weekend with earnings of $1.4 million in 36 theaters.. Milk will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 10, 2009.
Critical reception
Milk received widespread acclaim from film critics. As of January 30, 2009, Rotten Tomatoes has given the film a 93% rating with a 184 fresh and fourteen rotten reviews. The average score is 8/10. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 84, based on 38 reviews.
Todd McCarthy of Variety called the film "adroitly and tenderly observed," "smartly handled," and "most notable for the surprising and entirely winning performance by Sean Penn." He added, "[W]hile Milk is unquestionably marked by many mandatory scenes . . . the quality of the writing, acting and directing generally invests them with the feel of real life and credible personal interchange, rather than of scripted stops along the way from aspiration to triumph to tragedy. And on a project whose greatest danger lay in its potential to come across as agenda-driven agitprop, the filmmakers have crucially infused the story with qualities in very short supply today - gentleness and a humane embrace of all its characters."
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter said the film "transcends any single genre as a very human document that touches first and foremost on the need to give people hope" and added it "is superbly crafted, covering huge amounts of time, people and the zeitgeist without a moment of lapsed energy or inattention to detail . . . Black's screenplay is based solely on his own original research and interviews, and it shows: The film is richly flavored with anecdotal incidents and details. Milk surfaces in a season filled with movies based on real lives, but this is the first one that inspires a sense of intimacy with its subjects."
A.O. Scott of The New York Times called Milk, "A Marvel", and wrote the film "is a fascinating, multi-layered history lesson. In its scale and visual variety it feels almost like a calmed-down Oliver Stone movie, stripped of hyperbole and Oedipal melodrama. But it is also a film that like Mr. Van Sant’s other recent work — and also, curiously, like David Fincher’s Zodiac, another San Francisco-based tale of the 1970s — respects the limits of psychological and sociological explanation."
Christianity Today, a major progressive Christian-faith based periodical, gave the film a positive response. It stated that "Milk achieves what it sets out to do, telling an inspiring tale of one man's quest to legitimize his identity, to give hope to his community. I'm not sure how well it'll play outside of big cities, or if it will sway any opinions on hot-button political issues, but it gives a valiant, empathetic go of it." It also stated that the portrayal of Dan White was very fair and humanized and portrayed as more of a flawed and tragically opinionated character, rather than a "typical 'crazy Christian villain' stereotype".
In contrast, John Podhoretz of the neoconservative magazine Weekly Standard blasted the portrayal of Harvey Milk, saying that it treated the "smart, aggressive, purposefully offensive, press-savvy" activist like a "teddy bear". Podhoretz also argued that the film glosses over Milk's polyamorous relationships; he opined that this contrasts Milk from present day gay rights activists fighting over monogamous same-sex marriage.
Screenwriter and journalist Richard David Boyle, who described himself as a former political ally of Milk's, stated that the film made a creditable effort of recreating the era. He also wrote that Penn captured Milk's "smile and humanity", and his sense of humor about his homosexuality. Boyle reserved criticism for what he felt was the film's inability to tell the whole story of Milk's election and demise.
The Advocate, while supporting the film in general, criticized the choice of Penn given the actor's support for the government of Cuba despite the country's anti-gay rights record. Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen said in the article "that Sean Penn would be honored by anyone, let alone the gay community, for having stood by a dictator that put gays into concentration camps is mind-boggling." Los Angeles Times film critic Patrick Goldstein commented in response to the controversy, "I'm not holding my breath that anyone will be holding Penn's feet to the fire."
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Movie City News shows that the film appeared in 131 different top ten lists, out of 286 different critics lists surveyed, the 4th most mentions on a top ten list of the films released in 2008.
- 1st - Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter
- 1st - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
- 2nd - Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
- 2nd - Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
- 2nd - Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
- 2nd - Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
- 3rd - Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
- 3rd - Lou Lumenick, New York Post
- 3rd - Marjorie Baumgarten, The Austin Chronicle
- 3rd - Robert Mondello, NPR
- 3rd - Ben Lyons, At the Movies
- 4th - Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader
- 4th - Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle
- 4th - Stephen Holden, The New York Times
- 4th - Ty Burr, The Boston Globe
- 4th - Ben Mankiewicz, At the Movies
- 5th - Marc Doyle, Metacritic.com
- 5th - Richard Corliss, TIME magazine
- 5th - Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter
- 6th - Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
- 6th - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club
- 6th - Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
- 7th - Dana Stevens, Slate
- 7th - David Denby, The New Yorker
- 7th - Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe
- 8th - A. O. Scott, The New York Times
- 9th - Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer
- 9th - Liam Lacey, The Globe and Mail
- 9th - Noel Murray, The A.V. Club
- 9th - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
- 9th - Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
- 10th - Nathan Rabin, The A.V. Club
- Listed - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (Ebert gave a top 20 list in alphabetical order without ranking and announced on his website that he considered it the most deserving 2008 'Best Picture' winner at the Oscars.)
Awards and nominations
Milk had received accolades from several film critics organizations. On December 9, the film received eight Critic's Choice Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Two days later, Sean Penn received one Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor, the film's only nomination. On December 18, the Screen Actors Guild nominated Milk on three categories: Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Cast in a Motion Picture for the 15th Screen Actors Guild Awards; Sean Penn was chosen as Best Actor. On January 5th, the film's producers received a nomination for Producer of the Year for the 20th Producers Guild of America Awards; and on January 8th Gus Van Sant received a nomination for Outstanding Directorial Achievement for the 61st Directors Guild of America Awards. The film won Best Original Screenplay at the 62nd Writers Guild of America Awards and received four BAFTA award nominations, including Best Film, for the 62nd British Academy Film Awards. On January 22, 2009; Milk received 8 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, for the 81st Academy Awards, winning two for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor in a Leading Role (Sean Penn).
| List of awards and nominations |
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| Award | Category | Name | Outcome |
|---|
| 81st Academy Awards | Best Motion Picture of the Year | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Achievement in Directing | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | Achievement in Film Editing | Elliot Graham | Nominated | | Achievement in Costume Design | Danny Glicker | Nominated | | Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score | Danny Elfman | Nominated | | 59th American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards | Best Edited Feature Film, Dramatic | Elliot Graham | Nominated | | American Film Institute | Top 10 Outstanding Movies of the Year | | Won | | 13th Art Directors Guild Awards | Excellence in Production Design in a Period Film | Bill Groom | Nominated | | 4th Austin Film Critics Association Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | 28th Boston Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Won | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | 14th BFCA Critic's Choice Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | Best Supporting Actor | James Franco | Nominated | | Best Writer | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | Best Composer | Danny Elfman | Nominated | | Best Acting Ensemble | | Won | | 62nd British Academy Film Awards | Best Film | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Sean Penn | Nominated | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | Best Makeup and Hair | Steven E. Anderson, Michael White | Nominated | | 21st Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Nominated | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | Best Original Score | Danny Elfman | Nominated | | 11th Costume Designers Guild Awards | Excellence in Period Costume Design for Film | Danny Glicker | Nominated | | 15th Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Film | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Runner-Up | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Runner-Up | | Best Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | 2nd Detroit Film Critics Society Awards | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Nominated | | 61st Directors Guild of America Awards | Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | 20th GLAAD Media Awards | Outstanding Film, Wide Release | | Nominated | | 66th Golden Globe Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Motion Picture Drama | Sean Penn | Nominated | | 2nd Houston Film Critics Society Awards | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | 23rd Independent Spirit Awards | Best Male Lead | Sean Penn | Nominated | | Best Supporting Male | James Franco | Won | | Best First Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | Best Cinematography | Harris Savides | Nominated | | 5th International Film Music Critics Association Awards | Best Original Score for a Drama Film | Danny Elfman | Nominated | | 29th London Film Critics Circle | Best Film of the Year | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director of the Year | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor of the Year | Sean Penn | Nominated | | 34th Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | 56th Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards | Best Sound Editing, Dialogue and ADR in a Feature Film | Robert Jackson | Nominated | | 80th National Board of Review Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Won | | 43rd National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Runner-Up | | 74th New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Won | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Won | | 8th New York Film Critics Online Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Ensemble | | Won | | 3rd Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | 9th Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards | Top 10 Films | | | | Best Performance by an Actor in a Lead Role | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Acting Ensemble | | Won | | 20th Producers Guild of America Awards | Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Stanley Kramer Award | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Won | | 5th St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | Best Cinematography | Harris Savides | Nominated | | Best Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | 7th San Francisco Film Critics Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Won | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Won | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | 13th Satellite Awards | Best Motion Picture, Drama | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor in a Leading Role | Sean Penn | Nominated | | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | James Franco | Nominated | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | Best Original Score | Danny Elfman | Nominated | | 15th Screen Actors Guild Awards | Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | | Nominated | | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, Motion Picture | Sean Penn | Won | | Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, Motion Picture | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | 23rd Society of Camera Operators Awards | Camera Operator of the Year | Will Arnot | Nominated | | 17th Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards | Best Picture | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Won | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Runner-Up | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | 12th Toronto Film Critics Association Awards | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Runner-Up | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Runner-Up | | 9th Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Film | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Won | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Won | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | 7th Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards | Best Film | Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen | Nominated | | Best Director | Gus Van Sant | Nominated | | Best Actor | Sean Penn | Nominated | | Best Supporting Actor | Josh Brolin | Nominated | | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Nominated | | Best Ensemble | | Nominated | | 61st Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Original Screenplay | Dustin Lance Black | Won | | Paul Selvin Award | Dustin Lance Black | Won |
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