There's a lot to recommend Gus Van Sant's Milk on political and historical grounds. But for reasons both diverting and serious Sean Penn's smile binds it together and lifts it up. Penn's performance as Harvey Milk is a wonder all around -- he is by turns impassioned, thoughtful, mischievous -- but his face-stretching, joyful smile pushes the limits of what one facial expression can accomplish in a performance.
In moments both personal and political, that smile comes as Milk prevails at something he had persistently sought, with the apparent view that it could be achieved. And then, in the moment it is achieved, the smile says that this is an unexpected joy, something he didn't really believe was coming. It might come as a beautiful younger man agrees to go home with him, or at a moment of political triumph alike. And this is where it creates a seamless whole for the film: We see the emotional side of political movement participation not merely as high-minded righteousness but as fun, as a consistent not separate part of participants' lives. For many of us who have had exactly this experience that won't come as much of a surprise, but in a biographical film in which a tragic figure is played by a major dramatic actor, it's an unexpectedly light touch. It makes the human side of the story so very human, and beautiful.
It means that in this movie, not only is the personal political (to use the -- entirely true -- cliche), but the political is personal. And that's how it is in life, right? A few people may base their activism solely on some moral notion detached from human interaction and feeling, but not very many, and they'd be unlikely to form the core of a movement. No, maybe you come to activism through something that happened to you or someone you loved, or through your friends. As you participate, your fellow activists become your friends, your family, your world. There's hard work and sacrifice, but they're experienced alongside people you love and enjoy. Van Sant's film captures that sense of the creation of community, of people discovering their strengths and being encouraged to use them, of hard work often tinged with desperation and fear at what failure would mean but also punctuated with laughter and silliness and sex.
Milk condenses its main character's move from closeted suit-wearer to ponytailed gay activist -- in the film, Milk is wearing a suit and living in the closet meets the younger, hippyish Scott Smith, and pretty directly decides to grow his hair and move to San Francisco. But in real life, Milk's transformation had been a bit more extended and meandering; he'd already lived in San Francisco for a time, and had grown his hair long while there the first time. But aside from this initial telescoping, even the people depicted in it speak highly of the film's historical accuracy:
Anne Kronenberg: I think it was very historically accurate and I was nervous ahead of time... Danny and I just saw the movie yesterday, and it is right on.
--snip--
Cleve Jones: I think it's also remarkable and wonderful that the political storyline remained intact. For Hollywood -- and none of us come from the entertainment world, this is totally a new experience for all of us -- but for Hollywood films it's usually all about the personal relationships. And that's in the film, of course, but the political struggle is there.
And it's a remarkably sophisticated view of the political struggle. In a crucial scene, as protesters mass in the streets, Milk hands off his bullhorn to Cleve Jones (played by Emile Hirsch) and tells him to lead a march to city hall, where Milk, as the city's first gay supervisor, will mediate. Most filmmakers would have focused on Milk's role as a politician inside the system from the moment he was elected, but Van Sant and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black keep the story on his participation in a movement bigger than himself. Yes, being the mediator and the deliverer of gay votes would raise Milk's personal profile and power, but without the pressure from the movement on the outside, he would have been able to accomplish much less. (Worth remembering when we think about other inspirational politicians...)
One of Milk's triumphs is the inescapability, whether you watch it with a personal or a political eye, of how far we have come in 30 years. There is, of course, a bittersweet aspect to watching the struggle in the film against the anti-gay Proposition 6 while thinking about Proposition 8. But even there, how far we've come. And watching the file footage of Anita Bryant (who, in an excellent move is never depicted by an actor), I had such an overwhelming sense of the tide of history that has swamped people like her. They may still be fighting hard to keep us all from moving forward, but they've lost. They've lost when the question has shifted from witch hunts to prevent gay people from teaching to an equal right to marry. They've lost when the movies about the era don't need to make noble eunuchs of gay leaders and don't need to caricature Anita Bryant because she herself is caricature enough.
The sense of passion and pleasure and lightness to Milk makes it a great movie. Its representation of a politics at once pragmatic and radical, suffused with seriousness of purpose but open to fun, pushing hard from outside and in, makes it a valuable primer on movement politics for anyone tempted to believe elections and legislation are all. And that vision of relentless, swift motion forward to justice -- and even if day to day it is slow and compromised and tragically incomplete, it is so fast when you think about where we were then and where we are now -- that vision is astounding.