 "Photo: Photo Courtesy of popsquire.com")
Milk, which is now playing in theatres everywhere, is the story of the first openly gay elected official in United States history. Harvey Milk, who was born and raised in New York, migrated to the Castro district of San Francisco in 1970 with partner Scott Smith (played by James Franco in the film).
Gus Van Sant's motion picture follows Milk's move to the Castro district, his rise as a political leader and gay rights activist and his unfortunate assassination in 1978.
Van Sant has received universal acclaim for nearly two decades for his controversial films such as My Own Private Idaho, Elephant and Drugstore Cowboy as well as his more mainstream works like Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester.
With a combination of both of his directing styles, Van Sant uses his penchant for the historically significant story of Harvey Milk to bring a pressing, controversial event to mainstream America. The openly gay director, Van Sant, has wanted to make a biopic about Harvey Milk for over ten years.
Although Van Sant's genius directing and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay formed the basis for this true account, it is Sean Penn's unrelenting interpretation of Harvey Milk that sets this film up for a very deserving Oscar nod.
Besides the fact that a skinnier Penn is the spitting image of the late Milk, he truly encapsulates all the stress and strife that Harvey Milk had to fight through to take a stand against homosexual discrimination in America.
After over two decades of acting and directing, Sean Penn has become a household name and a Hollywood powerhouse for his ability to capture and encompass characters in a truly emotional fashion.
From his characterization of a racist murderer on death row in Dead Man Walking, to his portrayal of the troubled and edgy father of a murdered teenager in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, Penn always delivers Oscar-caliber performances. In addition to Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin and young Hollywood maverick Emile Hirsch were among the cast. James Franco played the trustworthy and sometimes unappreciated Scott Smith, longtime partner of Harvey Milk. He did an outstanding job and continues to show critics his versatility, coming off the universal success of "stoner" comedy, Pineapple Express.
Hirsch's character was also very well developed and he added a comical and eccentric twist to a very serious movie. The real slip-up for Van Sant and company in this film was their characterization of the very unstable city supervisor, Dan White. Brolin, who played a supporting character in 2007's Best Picture winner, No Country for Old Men, had an underdeveloped character in Milk. There was so much left unsaid about White's unbalanced life and Brolin's acting potential was caged.
White's conservative lifestyle took a toll on his well being and there are even speculations that he was an alcoholic and homosexual himself. And although some of these themes are hinted at briefly in Milk, they appear random and out of place because his character was not fully developed. In an interview on November 8, Franco explains that he knew little of the story of Harvey Milk before getting the pitch for the role of Scott Smith.
"One of the first things I did was watch Rob Epstein's documentary The Times of Harvey Milk, and it felt familiar," Franco said. "I recognized Harvey's face but I didn't know his story. And thinking back to it, afterwards I thought it was really sad, here I am growing up in Palo Alto, 45 minutes away from where Harvey Milk lived and died and I wasn't taught anything about him."
Franco went on to say about how he wished he was taught about Harvey Milk in school growing up.
Franco explained that what really drew him to the movie was Gus Van Sant. He had grown up watching his movies and considered himself a big fan.
"When I was in high school in Palo Alto I would watch Drugs for Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, repeatedly. This was before I was doing any acting- I just fell in love with his movies," Franco said.
When asked about the hype surrounding a Supporting Actor nod, Franco graciously replied, "It's just such an honor. Anything I say is going to sound so stupid and cliché but it is really an honor. I believe movies are a director's medium, so if I believe that, then I have to realize as an actor that I have to turn everything over to the director."
Well, I think it is safe to say, that come April, Milk will be on the Oscar ballot, probably in more than one category. It is imperative that the Harvey Milk story is brought to the forefront of popular media. The film is a triumph, and not only for its great cast and directing, but for its importance in society.
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