Get Milk

Gus Van Sant on bringing the story of slain
gay politician Harvey Milk to the big screen

SIGNS OF THE TIMES: Milk

by MATTHEW HAYS

For many gays, Harvey Milk is a legendary figure. When San Francisco emerged as the queer Mecca of America in the ’70s, Milk moved there from New York and opened a small camera store. While California was arguably the most progressive place in the union, Milk could still feel all kinds of homophobia, and decided to do something about it.

After several campaigns, Milk won a seat on San Francisco’s city council in 1977, becoming the first out gay politician to be elected in America. Almost a year later, he was gunned down by another city councillor, Dan White, who also shot the city’s mayor, George Moscone. Milk effectively became the Martin Luther King, Jr. of the gay liberation movement.

It was a profoundly sad story, one brilliantly told in the Oscar-winning 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk. But as compelling, emotional and fascinating as Milk’s story is, the tale of bringing it to the big screen in dramatic form is an epic in itself.

OSCAR-WORTHY: Sean Penn

Watching the documentary, you can see how inspirational and utterly charming and charismatic Milk was. Thus Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams both expressed the desire to play the role. At one point, Oliver Stone was slated to direct; some in the gay community protested, arguing this film project should be held for a gay filmmaker.

In the past two years, two competing projects emerged, one helmed by Gus Van Sant, perhaps the most prominent filmmaker of the fabled New Queer Cinema movement of the ’90s. Ironically, the other project was connected to Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns), a director who has been most reluctant to discuss his sexual orientation—something Milk himself always argued was crucial for gay people to do.

COUNTERING CLICHÉ

Van Sant is the first to make it across the finish line, and it is an extremely impressive feat: titled simply Milk, Van Sant’s film manages to be moving without being cloying, arriving in the fairly standard biopic format without feeling stale or tired. Given the well-worn clichés attached to the genre, Van Sant’s achievement is all the more admirable.

Interestingly, Van Sant doesn’t feel that homophobia had much to do with slowing down Milk’s story’s arrival on the big screen. And Van Sant might know—he was attached to the project when Robin Williams was on board. Van Sant was also originally set to direct Brokeback Mountain, the landmark gay film that ultimately landed with Ang Lee.

ZEN MASTER: Van Sant

“I don’t think it’s political—I just don’t see it that way,” Van Sant says, on the line from Los Angeles. “I think it’s monetary. If gay figures turned out to be as profitable as action figures, we’d see a lot more of them.”

But Van Sant is aware that many people are closely watching how Milk performs. It is, after all, the first high-profile gay-themed feature since Brokeback, which earned a tidy sum at the box office and garnered several Oscars. “I don’t know why that didn’t have more of an impact,” says Van Sant. “I would have thought the success of Brokeback would have spawned a few more spec scripts, at the very least. The idea that there hasn’t been one gay-themed film in the meantime is surprising.”

What’s not surprising is the performance of Sean Penn, who turns in another Oscar-worthy turn (it will at the very least earn him a nomination) as Milk. To be sure, he had good material to work with: Milk was a witty, sharp hippie, who realized he had to cut his hair short in order to appeal to more conservative voters and thus win office. He also had a healthy sexual appetite, something Van Sant doesn’t shy away from in the feature. Penn is backed up by a solid supporting cast, including James Franco and Josh Brolin, who plays the murderous homophobe White. (Brolin has had a season of playing right-wing creeps—he’s also President Bush in Oliver Stone’s W.)

SERIOUSLY SLUTTY

What Van Sant also manages is a high-wire act that would make the Cirque du Soleil dizzy. Milk, after all, involves a minority renowned for its free sexual expression at a time—the late ’70s—when AIDS didn’t exist and when free love was seemingly everywhere. Van Sant knew he wanted his film to be blunt and uncompromising, while not putting off audiences who might find seriously slutty images too over-the-top.

Van Sant thought about going all the way, even including a scene in a sauna. “There was some humping I was going to put in there,” he says. “But you know, the sex scenes were going to happen towards the end of the shoot, and by that point, I didn’t feel like I wanted to push them that far. Ultimately, it didn’t seem to serve the story well. Sex wasn’t really the energy of the movie, even if it had been the energy of the movement at that time.”

But Van Sant, who famously depicted two Columbine-esque teen boy murderers kiss each other in the shower before heading off to ignite a school massacre in Elephant, says he’s aware of the stigma around a man-on-man big-screen kiss. “I think that’s about the way in which the public relates to its own definition of masculinity. But I think it’s changing.”

Van Sant says he did consider trying to cast a gay actor in the role of Milk, recalling William Friedkin’s landmark film The Boys in the Band (1970), in which a cast of gay actors memorably portrayed gay characters. But the problem, again, is one of economics. “There are only about three out gay actors out there, and the way films work today, you need a name actor in order to get financing and press attention. You could try to get a gay actor, but then you’d have less of a name attached and no possibility of money.”

MARRYING MAINSTREAM WITH INTEGRITY

Still, even if some feel that a gay actor should have been cast, or that there should have been more images of erections or penetration, it will be hard to fault Van Sant. This is an accomplished, thoughtful film. And that’s not surprising, given the man’s body of work—Van Sant has manoeuvred, seemingly without effort, between box-office-friendly studio features like Good Will Hunting (1997) and defiantly experimental ones such as Gerry (2002). With his latest, he’s married mainstream appeal with integrity.

Talking to Van Sant makes one realize how much times have changed. A soft-spoken man, he is at times difficult to hear. And he’s so Zen, it’s sometimes difficult to imagine him navigating his way through the rough-and-tumble world of studio filmmaking. He seems light years away from the personality of someone like Milk, who was an aggressive, pushy activist—the type of person so many in the gay community used to sneer at as being embarrassingly uncool.

Van Sant says making Milk allowed him to get in touch with his inner activist. “I’m not the guy who grabs the bullhorn or joins the parade. But through my art, I’ve tried to challenge conventions. I’ve joined some of the parades here protesting the vote against same-sex marriage. I think, for me, I was just always unaware of how the press worked. I mean, I really didn’t understand the idea of having a press conference. When I ran an art gallery when I was 16, I didn’t understand that getting your photo into the paper was a good idea. It just didn’t dawn on me.

“I’ve become more involved as a result of the film. I’d love to be an activist. But I’m not really one, not the way Harvey Milk was.”