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BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
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 Posted - 12/10/2008 : 00:18:21
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Had to watch this twice 'cause first time I was crying too much. Too tired tonight to explain, but I will tomorrow, I promise.
HERE IT IS -Bit of a saga I'm afraid.
Milk
Why I cried. And things you won't get from the film.
Part One
Once upon a time I lived in a land called Greenwich Village. I became very ill and my own apartment was sub-let because I had expected to go with the LaMama Troupe for a summer at Brandeis University where we were tasked with creating a play with our director Tom O'Horgan and playwright Megan Terry. The play was to be called Massachusetts Trust.
Tom would soon become world famous as the director of Hair. LaMama, headed by the remarkable ex-fashion designer Ellen Stewart, was recently back from our block-buster 6-month European tour and starting to be feted for the innovative place it was in its encouragement of new playwrights such as Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, and Tom Eyen [original writer of DreamGirls].
Tom and Ellen had become my parents of choice, my biological ones and I having drifted apart and apart and apart. Tom is gay. Ellen is black. within the confines of LaMama I never saw any prejudice against anyone, for anything, ever.
I was the proverbial - some of my best friends are ...
Part Two
My maternal grandparents ran a dry-goods store in Rockaway and lived in a NYC suburb called Woodmere. They were friends with Morris Milk and his son William. My Uncle Jack knew Harvey and his brother Robert.
I didn't know any of that and why should I.
I met Harvey and his then lover Galen McKinley when I was part of the LaMama Troupe because Galen [also called Jack] hung around and helped out and was generally a friend. He'd also lived with Tom for a while. Harvey earned good money in the straight world and often funded various LaMama projects, though always in the background. I only found out about that way later.
Galen was adorable, like an intense cherub with a wicked sense of humor. Do a Google image search - you'll see what I mean. Harvey was quieter with an even more wicked sense of humor. He'd already done military service when it was compulsory, and was well thought of in the financial world uptown where he worked. Galen needed you to prove you weren't out to hurt him - part of the protection he picked up tricking on the streets. Harvey loved everyone until they proved he shouldn't.
When I was so ill I couldn't go to Massachusetts, first I was in the hospital. When I got out, Harvey and Galen fixed a room for me in the apartment they shared with their wonderful dog called Trick. They literally nursed me back to health until I could rejoin the Troupe.
I'm not gay and never have been. They both knew that. They'd met the Scottish guy I lived with who was by that time Tom's assistant, and whom I later married when we moved to England to start and run the UK LaMama called The Wherehouse.
I mention that as yet another indication that Harvey was interested in people. All people. He cared about them with kindness, with passion because he knew all people are first of all the same. Only then are they different in the way that makes each one unique.
Part Three - stuff that is in the film
Flash forward to 1975. I was, for about 1� years, living in Los Angeles. At some point I had to go to San Francisco and, of course, I went to see Harvey who had by that time established Castro Cameras. He was also running for City Supervisor as an openly gay candidate. There was a march. Of course I accepted his invitation to march in support. I wore a long tee-shirt that said: Harvey Milk for City SUPERvisor. And nothing else. I mean I only wore the tee-shirt. As expected, Harvey lost, but I was back in LA by then, but I knew he was determined to run again.
Flash forward to 1978
I was living back in England, building a successful film and television career. I took some time to visit my mother, then living in a San Francisco suburb. Of course I went to visit Harvey. By this time he had been elected City Supervisor, but on the day I saw him he was sitting in for the mayor George Moscone.
He took me on a tour of the beautiful City Hall where he worked, walking through marble corridors with his arm around me. He showed me a desk and pulled the drawer open. It was full of letters.
"Fan mail?" I asked.
"Hate mail," he said.
He told me that ever since he began his political career people had threatened to kill him. Hardly anything shocks me, but I was genuinely shocked. Some of my best friends ...
I asked if he received any protection, but he said that everyone had to die someday. As he walked me to the door, he stopped in the corridor and we hugged and hugged. I was so proud of him and he of me. It had been a wonderful visit. Two of his colleagues passed us. I said, "Didn't you know? Harvey is a closet straight!" Everyone laughed, Harvey most of all.
That's the last time I saw him. Before the end of the month he'd been assassinated.
Part Four - the other day
I was sent a DVD of Gus Van Sant's film Milk. I told myself to concentrate on the film and not on my friend Harvey. But it was impossible and I cried and cried. Especially at the last shot of Harvey - not Sean Penn, but Harvey, my Harvey, laughing.
So I watched it again.
Van Sant sketches in a bit of Harvey's life in NYC before he moved to California, particulary his meeting with Scotty who became his lover after he split up with Galen. The context is a tape recording Harvey is making sometime in 1978 advising people how to handle things in case he's assassinated. Because Van Sant's direction is so confident, he's able to clarify Harvey's political journey, though inevitably some of the scenes serve as chronological punctuation rather than emotional developments.
Still, there's plenty of unsentimental sentiment between characters, and certainly enough to bridge any gaps of alienation if you don't happen to be a gay man, or, in my case, a personal friend. It's hard for me to be sure/objective but I think so.
By the time we get to the shot near the end of the candle-lit march of 30,000 people paying tribute to the man who became known as "The Mayor of Castro Street" we're sure we'd be marching there too.
Harvey's remarkable dedication to the wonderment promised by the American constitution is wholly absorbed in Sean Penn's performance. He's captured so much of Harvey with the blueprint provided by Van Sant. My unreasonable quibble is that we get so much of what Harvey did and not enough of who Harvey was.
As to the rest, the political dimension wisely mirrors some of the personal, strengthening the impact. It's particularly strong in the scenes where Harvey tries to convince in-the-closet influential gay community scions to break through social barriers, to recruit them on the side of justice.
It's also a seminal part of Harvey's relationship with another troubled City Supervisor Dan White. Since this is history, it's not a spoiler to add that it was White who was the assassin.
I believe one of the reason films like this are important is to remind successive generations that liberties are achieved only because of the struggle against oppression. And that liberty lost demeans us all.
Part Five - not in the film
Three months after the assassination, Galen - who had never stopped loving Harvey - fell from an open window in Tom's 8th floor apartment. |
Edited by - BaftaBaby on 12/10/2008 12:14:31 |
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w22dheartlivie 
"Kitty Lover"
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Posted - 12/10/2008 : 12:50:51
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| Thanks for sharing that, BB. It adds so much to what the film offers and is very touching. *goes for tissue* |
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bife
"Winners never quit ... fwfr ... "
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Posted - 12/10/2008 : 13:13:22
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| I'd never heard of him until a few minutes ago baffy, and i had no intention of watching the film, but i certainly will now. |
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demonic
"Cinemaniac"
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Posted - 12/10/2008 : 20:54:49
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| Thanks for the post BB. It's always fascinating to have some personal context - I'm going to read all that again after I've seen the film. |
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duh 
"catpurrs"
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Posted - 12/12/2008 : 04:21:10
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quote:
Originally posted by dem9nic
Thanks for the post BB. It's always fascinating to have some personal context
Ditto. I remember the news from when Harvey Milk was murdered, and I recall the sadness of it. BB's recollection helps me to see that grief that was expressed back then by others wasn't merely demonstration of non-prejudice, but was thoroughly genuine at the loss of a fine human being.
quote:
They'd met the Scottish guy I lived with who was by that time Tom's assistant, and whom I later married when we moved to England to start and run the UK LaMama called The Wherehouse.
So that's how you became a resident of England. I had wondered. |
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damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
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Posted - 12/17/2008 : 17:27:04
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i enjoyed "Milk," particularly the performances. i'm going to watch "Mystic River" and "Carlito's Way" again soon, just to watch how Penn transforms himself (like i need an excuse to watch Carlito).
however, i just never really felt connected to the subject matter. i agreed with just about everything he said, but i didn't feel it.
i thought the film presented him as the gay Malcolm X.
changing locations and re-creating his image. defiance in the face of authority and death, even an expectation of death, with no fear. an almost supernatural ability to start or stop a riot. emphasis on visibility and HUMAN rights, rather than specific-minority-group rights. and finally, the assassination.
i almost expected a montage of people at the end saying "I am Harvey Milk."
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 01/26/2009 : 08:42:32
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Milk
B.B., I'm more interested in and impressed by that then anything else I've ever seen on this site. It must be very hard to take in when a friend dies in such a sudden and vicious way. White's sentence must also have been quite sickening: I find it hard to fathom how it could be classed as manslaughter, given that he reloaded after killing the mayor amongst other things.
I felt the film was lacking a little something, but I think that that may just be because we are so used to biopics having a blockbuster feel or hamming up personal struggles. I still thought it was excellent and find myself wanting it to win in most categories, especially all the minor ones that I'm not specifically interested in, i.e. that for me are really just a vote for the film in general. Behind my liking of the film I have to admit the romantic but not necessarily misplaced idea that living in San Francisco and in the 1970s would have been a lot more exciting than living in London or now.
I've also got to say that the likeness of every character to the real person (as shown in the photos at the end, which admittedly were probably picked to favour this end) was amazing.
On damalc's point about human rights in general rather than specific groups' rights, I think that in principle human rights are general and I've read that in practice it was quite typical for different civil-rights groups to collaborate, so such a focus is realistic. In fact, I believe that in office Milk pushed through a wide range of measures for lots of different sectors of society (although B.B. is obviously in a better position to confirm that), and this isn't really shown in the film (although it is shown as being his manifesto).
It's very sad that even thirty years later and even in California people are voting against human-rights measures. |
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 03/25/2009 : 14:01:17
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I thought Penn's performance was beautiful, especially when you put it beside actual footage of Harvey Milk; he really got the indefatigable essence of the man.
That said, I also found the film strangely soulless, or, more precisely, just soul-deficient. You always expect the deck to be stacked in favor of a biopic subject, but I remember feeling that we were getting a feature's worth of cherry-picked edits a la Jon Stewart.
I'm not gay either [and who cares?], but as a patriotic American, I'm always shocked and ashamed to see anyone being denied his basic rights just because of cynically stirred-up populistic opinion [so the latest CA vote was similarly dismaying]. I know this has happened in our history with blacks, and with women [those who quote the Founding Fathers regarding contemporary mores do so at their peril], but the tide is turning, and the days are numbered when anti-gay or anti-abortion planks can elect politicians except in reactionary backwaters where they will become increasingly marginalized. The process is just maddeningly slow.
Anti-evolution is tougher: there are still too many people in America who believe the earth is only a few thousand years old. As the bard wrote, the impossible takes a little longer. |
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Demisemicenturian
"Four ever European"
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Posted - 03/31/2009 : 23:39:54
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| B.B., in case you haven't heard, I thought you might like to know that Cleve Jones is appearing at the N.F.T. on Thursday at 6:30. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 04/01/2009 : 06:54:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
B.B., in case you haven't heard, I thought you might like to know that Cleve Jones is appearing at the N.F.T. on Thursday at 6:30.
Thanks for the info. Sadly, I don't get to London these days.
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Milk
