Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

[Anhedionisiac]

The shot that played out in the reflection of a scattered whistle (at night, to boot) still has me wondering out loud a week later.
How does one go about managing a shot like that?

[Grand Illusion]

The shot that played out in the reflection of a scattered whistle (at night, to boot) still has me wondering out loud a week later.
How does one go about managing a shot like that?

I'm guessing, but possibly by building a larger whistle.

[Gregory]

I saw this a couple of days ago and agree with most of the responses here. It was a moving film to me but less so than The Times of Harvey Milk, but certainly not for a lack of trying.
Van Sant tries to squeeze every ounce of drama he can from the very moment of Milk's death, but for me the overwhelming thing in both films is the footage of the candlelight march.

This story has long been included in a mental list I keep of historical stories that could make great films. But this affair can't be scratched off my list yet: there's a great courtroom drama to be made, telling the story of the "Twinkie defense" and just how it was that White could get off with manslaughter after such a calculated political assassination.

[filmnoir1]

This is one of the best films of 2008. Gus Van Sant display's an emotional kinship to this material that provides the viewer with a sense of warmth and intimacy that makes the characters and their struggles come alive in a manner that Ang Lee could not capture with Brokeback Mountain. Sean Penn, as Milk, is inspired with the subtle moves of his hands, his neck, and his eyes that convey the joys, pain, and pride that this man felt about himself and the numerous people within the gay community in San Francisco.
This movie bristles with electricity in its performances, usage of the camera, editing, and music in a way that does not distract from the beauty and power of the story. Just as the last election taught us that change comes from the populace not government, this film too, celebrates the idea that real change and justice within America is possible but at a price. The price in this case is his life and a sense of stability but yet what he inspired is still relevant today because all people in America need to recognize that the queer community is guranteed the same rights as everyone else.

[TedW]

The shot that played out in the reflection of a scattered whistle (at night, to boot) still has me wondering out loud a week later.
How does one go about managing a shot like that?

Either there's an appropriate macro lens that will allow the necessary close focusing, or it's an effects shot.

[Anhedionisiac]

Love Grand Illusion's explanation, which I hadn't thought of, even if I'm inclined toward Ted's, which I had thought of.
Here's hoping Van Sant or Savides actually address it in an upcoming commentary.

[TedW]

I'll ask around for the actual answer, but I can almost guarantee you it wasn't a giant whistle.

[Grand Illusion]

I'll ask around for the actual answer, but I can almost guarantee you it wasn't a giant whistle.

Look ye, Ted, I've seen a whistle as big as a mountain. By death and devils, I've seen the chain as vast as the clouds.

Aye, I have seen it.

Twice.

[Michael]

Revisited Milk this afternoon. Still playing to full house in Orlando for nearly a month. My reaction remains exactly the same as mfunk's (2 pages ago). Walking out of the cinema with a mammoth lump in my throat, holding back sobs with all my might! What an emotional film that is. It's an opera in so many ways.

Too many shots in the film dropped my jaws. One of them I admire: the morning of the assassinations, we see Brolin naked in his white undies on a couch as he peeks at the sun rising through the blinds.That little seemingly unnecessary shot is so startling because it finally makes Dan White so much more a human being esp. after spending some time building despite for his hatred. Very Van Santian.

[oh yeah]

Saw this a couple weeks ago and thought it was pretty great. Penn is phenomenal here, and Van Sant's direction is certainly more than competent. I do feel perhaps Brolin was underused as Dan White; when he was onscreen he was quite good, especially the seemingly improvised drunken conversation between him and Milk. All in all I wouldn't put this above some of Van Sant's very best films, but it's certainly one of the best of the year.

[Michael]

Saw this a couple weeks ago and thought it was pretty great. Penn is phenomenal here, and Van Sant's direction is certainly more than competent. I do feel perhaps Brolin was underused as Dan White; when he was onscreen he was quite good, especially the seemingly improvised drunken conversation between him and Milk. All in all I wouldn't put this above some of Van Sant's very best films, but it's certainly one of the best of the year.

Mala Noche and Elephant are my favorite Van Sant films but Milk is easily his greatest Hollywood film. Hard to imagine that he actually returned to making Hollywood films after a string of great "small and experimental" films. And I must add that Milk is the BEST Hollywood film I've seen in ages, with all this rare beautiful artistry Van Sant milked into his vision.

Brolin's performance as Dan White was astounding but it was very brilliant that Van Sant kept him "underused". So to show us that the anti-gay crusade is not led just by one guy but also various people throughout the country, by shifting our attention on White to Bryant, Briggs, and a few other homophobes to create a bigger and national scale of homophobia. Hope this makes sense.

[TedW]

Hard to imagine that he actually returned to making Hollywood films after a string of great "small and experimental" films.

LOL. Don't know why it is so "hard to imagine" -- Gus gotta eat, too. I'm sure Last Days ain't exactly paying the bills. Seriously, though, why wouldn't Gus want to make this film?

[Michael]

Well, when was the last time Van Sant made a commercial film? Finding Forrester which was pretty dreadful. That was 8 years ago and I thought for sure Van Sant had given up on making commercial films.

I can't emphasize enough how thrilled I am that of all filmmakers, Van Sant (not Ang Lee, thank god!) was the one to handle Milk. And that film was due to be told for way too long time, no question about that.

[oh yeah]

Mala Noche and Elephant are my favorite Van Sant films but Milk is easily his greatest Hollywood film. Hard to imagine that he actually returned to making Hollywood films after a string of great "small and experimental" films. And I must add that Milk is the BEST Hollywood film I've seen in ages, with all this rare beautiful artistry Van Sant milked into his vision.

Brolin's performance as Dan White was astounding but it was very brilliant that Van Sant kept him "underused". So to show us that the anti-gay crusade is not led just by one guy but also various people throughout the country, by shifting our attention on White to Bryant, Briggs, and a few other homophobes to create a bigger and national scale of homophobia. Hope this makes sense.

Good point. Ugh, whenever Anita Bryant was onscreen spouting her nonsense I cringed, hah. I agree this is probably Van Sant's best "hollywood" film; it's finely crafted, not to mention very moving.

[foggy eyes]

Transcript of last week's discussion with Van Sant, Franco & Dustin Lance Black at BFI Southbank.

[Nothing]

With Chris, he's definitely ready to take control because he wants to be a director. There were scenes that he shot that were all his own. On Paranoid Park, the most brilliant one was the shower

Bloody hell, that's quite an admission. The shower scene is half the film...

Chris Doyle is the new Saul Bass.

[Antoine Doinel]

In any case it leads me to ask the next most important question - I know how the movie worked for me as a gay man, but how did it work for you? Did it have the same impact? Did the humor get through? Did Gus' now signature images of beautiful young and not so young men (including Josh Brolin in the underpants which was both touching and quite an erotic moment for me) work for you?

For me (as a straight man) the film did work and have quite an emotional wallop, though I think Epstein's doc is still the prime record of choice here (I found it to be far more interesting and moving than Van Sant's recreation). As for the humor and eroticism, I don't think Van Sant was really subtle about any of it, so I think the humor at least was pretty universal. As for the eroticism, and how he framed the men throughout the film, I picked up on it but I'm not sure how much of that was just knowing Van Sant and his history, but again I don't think he was sly about it either. Though, I must say I don't think there is any other working director who loves the forms of his actors the way Van Sant does - it's practically painterly what he does with the camera and the human body at times.

Just a quick question, which has been on my mind. I asked my gf but she disagreed with me, but, was it hinted at during the film that Dan White was closeted? I know it wasn't in the doc, but I couldn't help but feel, particularly after a couple of key conversations with Milk, that there was some insinuation made that White was living a lie. If so, was this founded on any actual truth?

[knives]

Milk's suspicion, really just a joke, was founded on fact and while nothing on Dan White being closeted has been or could be proved it is a theory that has been wondering around for years.

[Jakester]

I actively have followed the Gay Rights Movement so this is a film I am extremely interested in checking out. I just need to find a theater around me that has it. What does everyone think as far as accuracy goes?

[nyasa]

In any case it leads me to ask the next most important question - I know how the movie worked for me as a gay man, but how did it work for you? Did it have the same impact? Did the humor get through? Did Gus' now signature images of beautiful young and not so young men (including Josh Brolin in the underpants which was both touching and quite an erotic moment for me) work for you?

A man in his underpants has never done it for me, and never will. I can appreciate the aesthetics of the human form, male or female, but I did not experience the slightest erotic stirring during Milk.

As for the hints that Dan White was a closeted gay, I think they're disingenuous. Linking homophobia to repressed homosexuality is a cheap shot - though one which undoubtedly has had its merits in drawing the sting from attacks on the gay community over the years. In this case, however, I don't see where the evidence is. My reading of Dan White is that he was an intense, troubled man who was ground down by financial worries and the intrigues of local politics. Eventually he just flipped.

As for why Harvey Milk was targeted, he was as scheming as the next politician and, according to the accounts of those who knew him, could be a spiteful bitch. I think Dan White was motivated by factors other than sexuality, repressed or otherwise.

[Michael]

That shot of Josh in his white undies reminded me of the shower scene in Elephant. Up to that shot, we see Josh a very stiff, cold, angry zombie but that morning-glow shot completely and unexpectedly humanizes him being naked and stripped of polyester.

nysaa, repressed homosexuality is also homophobia. It's possible for gay men to hate themselves for being gay, some even going far to kill themselves or kill gay people who are fully contented and happy with themselves, something they couldn't ahieve.

[nyasa]

repressed homosexuality is also homophobia.

..but homophobia is not necessarily caused by repressed homosexuality. That was the point I was making.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Very impressive, further evidence of the renaissance of Van Sant's career. In the past he's been burned when trying to make mainstream films but this is a happy and agreeable balance between the demands of mainstream film making and his own artistic impulses. The performances are mostly good but I thought Diego Luna was handed a role that he was unable to make anything of; his Jack is such a simpering, whimpering and petulant young man that it's hard to sympathise even when he probably justifiably feels Harvey's sacrificing their relationship for his cause. Milk isn't a hero or a saint, never pious, his own conversion to gay/human rights came after many years of a repressed, conservative lifestyle. Maybe he sees White as this version of himself. It's an incredibly moving film; the candlelight vigil as mentioned but the most difficult scene was when the boy from Minnesota calls Milk and says he's thinking of killing himself and you see why he can't just leave when Milk asks him to. The film too is also unwittingly relevant now with the proposition banning gay marriage which passed in California almost unnoticed as Obama swept to power. Despite Milk's success in breaking down barriers of prejudice, maybe things have not changed as much as we'd like to think.

[colinr0380]

The beautiful scene with Brolin in the yfronts is the great humanizing moment. In fact the whole issue of good looking men being carressed by Savvides' camera is central to Gus, as a painterly director. Nudity per se invites multiple responses, and one of them is almost always vulnerability.

I'm sure we all remember Viggo Mortensen's pert buttocks fondly! It sort of sounds like it could bear comparison with Elephant, sketching in 'reasons' without being naive enough to suggest this is "the one to blame"?

I'm very much looking forward to seeing the film (and Paranoid Park - I'm so far behind) from reading through this discussion. I know on the awards thread I complained about issue-tastic, playing it safe films, but I can understand it in this case to keep the story accessible. (That may have also helped it get an Oscar nomination even if I'm afraid it will not stand a Brokeback Mountain's chance of winning Best Film!)

What was also germane to the gay movement in the US was that - and Harvey says this - without Bryant and the antigay Citizen Initiated Referenda (just like Prop 8 now) there would never have been a groundswell people's gay rights movement. She was the spark. No question about it.

Isn't that a good example of every action causing an equal and opposite reaction?

[Antoine Doinel]

Are IMDB homophobes making a concerted effort to drop Milk down the (pointless) IMDB Top 250?