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The Times of Harvey Milk



A true twentieth-century trailblazer, Harvey Milk was an outspoken human rights activist and the first openly gay U.S. politician elected to public office; even after his assassination, in 1978, he continues to inspire disenfranchised people around the world. The Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Robert Epstein and produced by Richard Schmiechen, was, like its subject, groundbreaking. One of the first feature documentaries to address gay life in America, it’s a work of advocacy itself, bringing Milk’s message of hope and equality to a wider audience. This exhilarating trove of archival footage and heartfelt interviews is as much a vivid portrait of a time and place (San Francisco’s historic Castro District in the seventies) as a testament to the legacy of a political visionary.

Disc Features

- Director-approved digital transfer, from the meticulous UCLA Film and Television Archive restoration (with DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition)
- Audio commentary featuring director Robert Epstein,coeditor Deborah Hoffmann, and photographer Daniel Nicoletta
- New program about The Times of Harvey Milk and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, featuring Epstein, Van Sant, James Franco, and Milk friends Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg, and Nicoletta
- Interview clips not used in the film
- New interview with documentary filmmaker Jon Else
- New program about The Times of Harvey Milk and Gus Van Sant’s Milk, featuring Epstein, Van Sant, actor James Franco, and Milk friends Cleve Jones, Anne Kronenberg, and Nicoletta
- Rare collection of audio and video recordings of Milk
- Excerpts from Epstein’s research tapes, featuring Milk partner Scott Smith
- Footage from the film’s Castro Theatre premiere and the 1984 Academy Awards
- Panel discussion on Supervisor Dan White’s trial
- Excerpts from the twenty-fifth anniversary commemoration of Milk’s and Mayor George Moscone’s assassinations
- Original theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic B. Ruby Rich, a tribute by Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk, and a piece on the film’s restoration by UCLA’s Ross Lipman

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A pleasant surprise. The New Yorker version has been OOP for a while. I'd like to think this is a sign of other former New Yorker properties seeing release from Criterion. Weren't they supposed to be back in business this year?

If nothing else, it certainly is another indicator of what has proven to be a fruitful collaboration with UCLA. They consulted on Stagecoach, supplied elements for Paths of Glory, and collaborated heavily on The Night of the Hunter.

Saw this before seeing Milk, and it's an extraordinary documentary...wonderful addition to the collection.

Somewhere an angel is getting its wings for this one.

This is my favorite documentary and I can't wait to have the Criterion BD release sitting on my shelf!

This is a strange film to prioritise... As much as I love the topic it's basically a conventional 'talking heads' documentary.

I wonder if they tried to get the rights to Milk, and that fell through- this (and the feature with Franco and Van Sant) would make more sense to me as a supplement. As with Burden of Dreams, it's a strong enough work to stand on its own, but it fits so well with something else that it seems almost odd not to pair them.

The Times of Harvey Milk is a pretty major and historic American documentary. I don't think it needs to ride Van Sant's coattails in order to justify Criterion releasing it.

They're explicitly tying it in with the Van Sant, though.

Because he made a recent, well-regarded, and fairly popular biopic on the subject. And it happens that Criterion has a friendly relationship with him, so why not? I'm not saying that what you're suggesting is completely out of the question, but it doesn't have to be the case, either.

Yeah, as I said, I do think this release stands on its own, and I'll actually probably wind up buying it- but I think, for instance, Chris Marker's AK could have been its own release, too. I just wonder if they acquired it with an eye towards pairing it with Milk.

Milk was a major studio release that's already out on Blu-ray. Should Criterion also have paired Fanfan la tulipe with one of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movies?

swo17 wrote:Should Criterion also have paired Fanfan la tulipe with one of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movies?

Yes.

Talking heads or not, this film is one of the finest documentaries I've had the fortune to see, and I am absolutely thrilled to see it getting the Criterion treatment, let alone a Blu-Ray. If I had to introduce people to Mlik and had to choose between the Epstein and the Van Sant (and no option to show them together), it'd be an easy decision for the former (which is not to say that Milk was terrible; it's worthwhile in its own right but the Epstein strikes me as clearly superior).

Finch wrote:Talking heads or not, this film is one of the finest documentaries I've had the fortune to see

Why? The subject matter alone, or is there something else about the film the reaches greatness? I haven't seen it yet, so I am simply curious.

I'd have to say I would choose the film over the doc if only for the heavy emotional impact of Van Sant's perfectly directed final act. Penn's reaction to seeing Brolin in his office will haunt me forever.

Pleasantly surprised at just how much better this looks in HD - can't wait to revisit the film next week!

Hello. I'd like to know if the DVD edition is window boxed. Thank you very much.

mfunk9786 wrote:I'd have to say I would choose the film over the doc if only for the heavy emotional impact of Van Sant's perfectly directed final act.

A doc is a film. A doc is also a narrative, and docs longer than 40 minutes are also features.

Perhaps you mean "the film with actors representing other people" as opposed to the "film without actors" (or maybe that is "a film with actors playing themselves.")

Yes, that is what I meant 3 months ago.

A very good interesting documentary.
I wish it was longer.
The supplements provide some context and post-script, but didn't seem that essential.
The film is barely 90 minutes.
Not sure why a 2nd disc was needed for the extras.

I was recently reading an essay by someone who mentioned wanting to show this film to his kids (teenagers at the time, I think) and when they got too "busy" to see the whole thing, they said they only wanted to watch the "funny parts": the clothes, hair-dos, and dancing on display in the footage of street parades in the Castro. Nevertheless, they ended up getting absorbed in the film and were completely moved by the end, in a state of sadness and disbelief. The film ended up being a way of conveying something that couldn't be said directly from parent to child.
I know I've been very moved by it, too, every time I've watched those old New Yorker releases.

This is such a well-made documentary on such a strong subject that it's easy to underestimate the craft and overestimate the subject when recalling its impact, but seeing it again reminds me just how rare it is to see filmmakers tackle such powerful and 'hot' subject matter with this degree of intelligence and control. It's a model of documentary structure, and the film is much stronger for choosing to stick with its well-defined structure even when it must have been tempting to step outside it briefly for the sake of momentary impact.

But what I've really come here to do is to praise the extras. At a time when Criterion seems to be scaling back on extras across the board, this release is a cornucopia, effectively a supporting archive about Milk and his times. I count more than six hours of material, with very little overlap and next to no puffery (even the Oscar acceptance speech is a historic moment on its own terms). Bravo!

The commentary is very informative and there's more than an hour of footage with alternative 'witnesses' which show just how radically different a film could have been made and this allows you to appreciate the decisions that were made all the better.

Finch wrote:If I had to introduce people to Mlik and had to choose between the Epstein and the Van Sant (and no option to show them together), it'd be an easy decision for the former (which is not to say that Milk was terrible; it's worthwhile in its own right but the Epstein strikes me as clearly superior).

I actually saw Van Sant's film first, and it piqued my interest in seeing the documentary. But after watching the documentary, I came away disappointed in Penn's performance in Milk. He plays Harvey Milk a tad too effeminately, especially when you hear Harvey speaking in the film clips in the documentary. I don't know, but maybe either Van Sant or Penn thought it would be more effective to portray Milk that way, but to me, his performance now seems stereotypical.