MILK Post-Release Discussion - Page 2

Seems to me that Van Sant put this out there as a means to tell Milk's story to a mainstream audience, much of which is still uncomfortable with man-on-man kissing. It wouldn't do Van Sant's point (or Milk's agenda) justice if insecure straight people were left focusing on how "there didn't need to be all that gay kissing and sex!" in the movie instead of on the message of equality.

It's a weak aesthetic move (and I found it distractingly evasive, too, when I was watching), but like others have said, this is Van Sant's "important" wide audience/Oscar bid movie. I suspect it's just as important to him that it work as propaganda for Milk's message as it does as a piece of cinema, and he made compromises in an attempt to accommodate both.

I actually brought up this point in the slightly revived Philadelphia thread. With 15 years between Demme's film and Van Sant's film, what do people think of the progress that has been made in the depiction of homosexual relationships?

My exposure to homosexuality in life and in cinema being very lacking, I honestly have to say that I didn't find the depiction of homosexuality in Milk to come across evasive. I only think about it now that others have brought it up.

So it looks like Milk is pretty much Philadelphia after 15 years?

No, Tom Hanks played the role of 'abstinent' homosexual, even though his character had AIDS.

Guess I should've been clearer. That's pretty much what I meant. Has the portrayal of homosexuals in cinema gotten particularly more open? Or is it pretty much just 15 years worth. I know it's pretty silly to request a measurement of progress, but oh well.

So clearly, strides have been made. Whereas Tom Hanks played the straightest homosexual ever who kisses Antonio Banderas on the cheek at most, Sean Penn shares openly passionate scenes with 2 of his costars. But now the issue is there's still a sense of evasion because the dark lighting makes some of those scenes come across anonymous.

So, to rephrase:

Is Milk pretty much what we'd expect 15 years after Philadelphia in terms of how openly it portrays homosexuality in mainstream cinema? Or is it less? Or more?

You're skipping two important points. 1. Brokeback Mountain where the guys fucked each other. 2. Even though it's not that good Queer as Folk.

But the thing is when it comes to homosexuality is that it's just one part of a person. So while some are incredibly flaming others are just regular folk. It's like anything else. I mean when it comes down to it. It shouldn't matter.

You're totally right. I got so focused on point A to B that I completely forgot about Brokeback. Apologies, because that was dumb of me.

I realize your second point and you're right that it shouldn't matter. ... but it does. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Right. I know what you mean. And there needs to be a balance. Obviously you have the story here of Harvey Milk and he was a proud gay guy and there's a need to show that. However, showing him making out and fucking so much would be as much as a detraction as having no affection to anyone.

This would come with the American Queer as Folk where the sex scenes would just go on and on and on and on. At some point you need to get moving. If I wanted to see fucking or sucking, I could just as easily watch porn.

It just seems odd to harp on this. Of course I just watched Philadelphia and you would have never thought Hanks was gay. Shit I didn't even know that he had been infected for quite sometime. Although the cause isn't nailed down except for the fact he fucked around in a porno theater three times.

Knowing Van Sant has shown no qualms filming homosexuality in past (My Own Private Idaho being a Fave of mine), I figured he wouldn't "cop out" for lack of a better description. But you make a valid point about this being Van Sant's big mainstream flick.

i think its sad that "mainstream" America still can't handle watching two guys kissing. It's so benign. Just get over it already.

Now I'm trying to think of well-known scenes with guys kissing (without it being a joke), and all I can come up with is that Christina Aguilera video.

Somehow it makes people really uncomfortable. Now two women making out different story.

Like I said, I think if there was more sex it would have been a bit of distraction.

I don't get this attitude. There are a bazillion movies out there with completely arbitrary straight sex scenes, boob shots, etc. that don't serve the story. Milk's sexuality is part of his persona. He is completely open about about his life - political and personal - and if you don't want to see his sexual side, you're missing a big part of who he is.

My Own Private Idaho. Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix. As a teenage girl with huge crushes on both actors... that was my own private fantasy.

Exactly, they don't serve the story. And maybe it was because I didn't want to see Sean Penn nude. *shrug*

I don't want to see him nude either. But kissing? It's so harmless. It was lame that they felt the need to blur out Franco's face as they kissed. That was distracting.

Now that I don't remember happening. I do remember them making out in front of the camera store. Obviously, if there was no expression of affection I would have wondered what the fuck?

I don't remember any specific blurring of Franco's face either. If anything, don't they show him and Penn kissing pretty openly when they first meet each other at the beginning of the film?

When they are in bed after their initial subway meeting. Franco's basically darkened out of the scene whenever it gets intimate. I don't know. It was pretty jarring to me. There are a few scenes, like in front of the camera store where they basically just give each other a peck, where they camera stays. I guess lip locking for a second is okay. Any more than that, not so much.

I think you have to look at the context. Penn and Franco have been together for quite sometime. Wouldn't you think it'd be a bit much if they were doing full bore making out each and everytime? Does anyone in a long term relationship actually do that?

As for that one scene, it's not an issue for me how long their lips are together.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt went pretty far sexually in Mysterious Skin.

Not to derail I had been meaning to see that. But I hear it'll put you through the wringer.

What are you talking about? I'm pointing out that the length that the camera stays focused directly on the actors seems to depend on how long the kiss lasts.

Oh okay, I misread what you wrote. I thought you were referring to what happens through the movie. Not the scene where they first meet.

Mysterious Skin is the best "gay" movie ever made. It is the high water mark for the amount of gay sex scenes in a movie. I don't know if the is a good thing or a bad thing. It is also tough to watch because of the molestation subplot.

The problem I have with Milk is that the screenplay takes a lot of scenes verbatim from the 1984 documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. It feels like there isn't a lot of imagination in the screenplay.

However, the best movie speech of the year is a tossup between The Ram's and Harvey Milk's "That is what America is"

I vote Happy Together for best gay movie, but I always do.

Well, I can't speak for straight women, but I will say this: it's not contradictory for a straight man to be comfortable watching women make out and feel at least a bit awkward seeing two men do the same. Because they're women. It isn't a double standard. And the ultimate hetero fantasy is to be with two bisexual women.

Never heard of this. Might have to check it out.

What does that mean exactly? It's a biopic, if you read The Mayor of Castro Street those events are there. I don't exactly know what you're saying by that.

Isn't it kind of narcissistic to look at two men kissing and not just take it for what it is, though? No one's saying that you have to be turned on by it.

I would of liked a more Nixon school of biopic. The one where you get a more of a psychological biography of the man than a "string of events that we took verbatim from a documentary".

We never got in depth into Dan White's motivations. Milk was almost portrayed as a "magical homosexual" to paraphrase Spike Lee.

There's also the scene immediately following, also in front of the camera store, where Harvey and Scott make out sitting at the window, extensively, locked together at the hips, as the camera slowly pulls back, for half a minute.

Well unlike Nixon there wasn't really such psychological subtext to what Milk did.

As for White? What went on with his life could apply to that method but then it's a question of focus for the film. Do we want to focus explicitly on Milk's life or do we want to look at the total picture of what was going in SF and life in how things were changing? That SF was moving away from the conservative blue collar city it once was. I don't necessarily think we could have gotten both things here without one or the other suffering because of it. Even though what goes with White, his trial and the ensuing riots are very fascinating.

I feel very lucky to have 2 Mysterious Skin posters. And yes it's my favorite "gay" film next to Brokeback Mountain.

Wow what a beautiful moving film. Van Sants best by a long shot and there simply wasn't a bad performance in the whole film.

I knew a little about Harvey Milk as a lad because I remember him being mentioned in passing when I was in San Fran 11 years after his death and being just a kid the description of Frisco as Amerivcas 'gay city' was one of the ways I differentiated it at the time outside of the bridge, hills and alcatraz. To see the mans story played out like that tho was deeply deeply affecting. I think the prop 8 nonsense and the fact that it seems in most states in America, this is a battle for human rights that really is yet to be won complegtely just hammered home to me how incredible Milk was in achieving what he did. My missus and I both walked out in tears, simply brilliant.

I can't fault a single performance, Penn was just wonderful and loveable as Milk, Hirsch was unstoppable (I give him five years until his own oscar win), but as echoed in other posts here the great surprise for me was Franco. He was affecting and real and a wonderful emotional lynchpin for the story. A great breakout dramatic role for him.

All in all a very important story wonderfully told.

Loved it.

I saw it last Sunday, and it pretty much blew me away. I welled up several times. It might be my favorite performance from Mr. Penn.

I love this movie, but I feel like Focus Features has really done it a disservice at the box office. Why is this still on less than 400 screens despite all the award nominations? I guess Middle America is destined never to see this.

Like I said in the Oscar thread. Were it not for Slumdog, this would be the front runner.

People will see it on DVD. The cover, with a big pic of Penn, and Brolin and Franco's names underneath the title, should catch people's attention.

What more could Focus Features have done?

The film got a lot of initial publicity/hype/praise due to the PC nature of the film, and awareness of the film was high. Milk even got a decent expansion after the Academy Awards nominations came out. But maybe, just maybe, Middle America just doesn't want to see this due to the subject matter or a dislike of Sean Penn.

Side note: the molestation subplot, while difficult to watch, was nowhere as difficult as the scenes of Jason Gordan while he was earning cash.

Also, while I would say Mysterious Skin has at least one gay character, I wouldn't necessarily categorize it as a gay film.

They could have opened it on over a thousand screens, for one thing. I don't believe this has hit over 400 screens during the entirety of its run, which means it never gained the box office traction to compete with Slumdog. If Brokeback Mountain could make it to $80 million, there's no reason this shouldn't have.

ETA: I guess it did make it over 800 screens at one point, but it didn't seem to stick around very long.

Finally got around to seeing this after the win. It's the first movie since A.I. to make me actually cry. I choke up at movies all the time and get misty, but this made me shed some tears. Especially the end.

Maybe because he was fresh in my mind from the Oscars, but I sort of thought Franco, with the stache, looked a little like Newman in some places.

I also really enjoyed Elfman's score. It might be my favorite of his, and I thought the repeated use of having events play out in mirrors and glass was an interesting technique.

A lot of the guys have hit the things I wanted to say, but I'm listening to the Creative Screenwriting podcast and Dustin Lance Black's a funny dude. Some highlights:

--He made it very clear that he wanted to make sure the audience knew that Dan White murdered Milk and Moscone.

--The old guy who's sitting around in the meetings at Castro Camera and such is Frank Robinson, who wrote the Towering Inferno, lived down the block from the real Harvey Milk, and wrote a large chunk of his speeches. Black's talking about the day they shoot the speech on Gay Freedom Day, and how Penn is delivering it beautifully, and the real Robinson is there. Robinson sees Black getting all choked up, elbows him, and says "You didn't fuckin' write that, I wrote that."

--A lot of Black's research was done through first-hand interviews with the actual people, and he was able to get life rights for free. Except for Cleve Jones, who is still the same kind of rabble rouser that he is in the movie, who likes to mess with people and what not. So he tells Black no to the life rights, because he has a friend who wants to direct it. Black starts freaking out, because he thinks it's some film student Jones has a crush on. Jones lets that sit for a minute, then tells Black, "relax, honey, my friend's name is Gus Van Sant."

Those last two anecdotes are gold Rath.

Missed this one the first go-around. Great movie. 

 

Sean Penn is an actor I some times have problems with, as he comes across as a bit of a pretentious jerk in real life. That's no reason to dislike an artist's work, however, and he totally loses himself in the role here. Being relatively unfamiliar with Harvey's background, however, I wish we'd found out more about his life in New York prior to the move to San Francisco. Scott mentions Harvey used to be very in the closet, and wouldn't mention Scott to his mom on the phone, but those "hypocrite" accusations feel hollow because by that point in the movie Harvey is entirely out of the closet and proud.

 

Speaking of Scott, this is one of Franco's more subdued roles. I'm surprised the guy doesn't get universal respect (or in some cases there's been a bit of a backlash), because he's a talented actor. Here he's all good humor until his frustration seeps in, and even then he radiates quiet intelligence and patience. He and Penn have great chemistry, both as lovers and political partners. Like it was mentioned up above, however, the relationship with Jack did little for me. I know it was the '70s, but it was a bit disconcerting how quickly Harvey picked up men. No judgments on the sexual aspect, everyone needs to get laid on occasion, but we see Harvey fall in love with two men over the course of the movie, both he picks up on a whim and sleeps with that same night. Hussy!

 

By the end I wanted to reach into the screen and shake Josh Brolin. Don't do it! Sigh. The debate driving through the movie, of gay rights and the lengths with which the right will go to take away those rights, was spooky in how relevant it is today. Only today they disguise their language more subtly.