Milk presentation part 3

   The film itself directly coincides with the narrative which is a recreation of Harvey Milk's recorded will. The narrative is based on time sequence as well as plot because it is a recounting of Milk's experiences. The narrative helps to build the story especially in the introduction as it quickly establishes the mood, ending, and beginning of the film all in the same instant, while showing actual news footage from the faithful day of Harvey Milks death.

      In Milk much of the mood and climactic events of the film are either intensified or set up by small things such as lighting or camera angles. For example, when his boyfriend Jack hangs himself, the scene begins with Sean Penn running up a stair well looking at all the papers and fliers in the hallway. There is a lot of quick cutting as he runs up the stairs and looks throughout the house for Jack, this adds a lot of tension as we know something tragic has just occurred and out of suspense we wait to see what that is exactly. We can assume that something has happened to Jack though, as he portrayed as shy, nervous, and overbearing, we can assume that because Milk was late he must have done damage to something, most likely himself.

          Another shot that I really enjoyed watching, eventhough it was set in a very bleak and depressing scene, is in the first 20 minutes of the movie when Milk is explaining how the system they developed within the gay community to use whistles, as a cry for help. In the scene, a young gay boy is being zipped up in a body bag, clearly he had just been murdered and Milk and a police officer are talking to eachother about the incident. The interesting part of the scene is that it is all filmed in a relection of the actual scene taking place. This reflection is viewed in the side of the whistle of the deceased boy, which is clear because it is lying in the street and covered in blood, as the boy was. This is interesting because the whistle makes it more unclear when looking at it because it is simply a reflection of the actual scene but with all the dialogue included, and because this is taking place at night, it makes the scene seem even more bleak and hopeless for Harvey Milk's movement.
         In addition to lighting and angles, emotions are extremely well incorporated into the movie and are done so well as to make the audience feel them. A prime example would be after Harvey Milk's big birthday party; keeping in mind that we know Dan White kills Harvey Milk because of the establishing shots in the movie.

After the party we see Dan White, drunk, come up to Harvey Milk, and this is soon after Harvey Milk had shut down the proposal for pay raises for those in office, proposed by Dan White. Drunk, White begins talking to Milk and leaving off ambiguous statements that can be interpreted in a negative way. Such as White's yelling about his personal "problem" that he has, and telling Milk that he, "has something for him" that he'd been wanting to give him, which we also never see. Sean Penn then portrays his discomfort by trying to avoid White and this seems like a prime murder scene, causing the audience to go into hysteria due to tension.

   These are just some of the numerous manipulations of emotion and the audience through the use of characters acting skills and different cinematographic methods of tension build up.

Milk presentation part 2

  MILK is a movie about the gay rights leader Harvey Milk. One of his greatest accomplishments next to becoming City Supervisor, is the ultimate repeal of Proposition 6, better known as The Briggs Initiative which would remove all gay citizens from their jobs, mainly focused on teachers as well as the removal of anyone who supported them. This prop came from the idea that gay teachers were molesting students and were raising them to be gay and be pedophiles which was ridiculous but was used as a violent and easy exploitation in places like Orange County. Thirty years later in 2008 during the production and release of this movie, prop 8 was being voted upon by the people of San Francisco, over the right for gay people to marry. This being a very controversial subject, as was prop 6, where many argued that these were both attacks on people's constitutional rights. This is likely an inspiration for the production of MILK 
  
I think the sets used when filming this movie were extremely important. Harvey Milk lived in the Castro district of the city of San Francisco and he lead his movements and lead his people through the streets of San Francisco. Gus Van Sant Filmed on location in San Francisco, visiting places and walking he streets that Harvey Milk lead in and built his movement upon. Being from the area and being that I have visited San Francisco often, this film hits extremely close to home and has twice the impact it would have had if I had lived anywhere else. This also relates to the intended audience and message of this film. While it does effect and show this great man's effects on the rest of the country, I feel this film, almost naturally creates the people of San Francisco as it's audience. Especially during the strenuous time in San Francisco when it was released during the battling sides over prop 8.

Milk presentation part 1

     Milk is a biography(the accounting of one's life, or a section of one's life)/drama(passionate in depth expression of emotion through visual art) about the rise, struggle, and assassination, and his effect on the people of the United States, mainly the city of San Francisco, of which he was the City Supervisor at the time of his tragic death.
     Gus Van Sant, the director, has mad other films which I feel relate very will in the theme and messages that this film sends. A few examples of other movies made by this director that are similar in theme are Good Will Hunting,and Finding Forester. In all three films, the common theme of a great person rising from a troubled life of prejudice and pain to becoming great in their eyes as well as others as they meet their true potential is dramatically expressed through the showing and emotionally incorporating the hardships that many people go through every day, without anyone recognizing their true potential.

Milk= A gay rights activist runs for City Supervisor in San Francisco in hopes of helping to unite the community while attempting to focus the people on the true issues that threatening the city. While ignoring and fighting off numerous attacks on his campaign and even on his life as he attempts to become the first openly gay person to be elected to a position of political power. All leading up to his tragic assassination.

Finding Forester= black teenager begins writing for a prestiges school, with the help of a retired author and learns to hone his natural skills as a writer and proves those who condemned him for his race wrong.

Good Will Hunting= poverty stricken delinquent with unlimited potential in the field of mathematics is exploited and damaged as a child from foster homes who grows up and learns to survive in a normal society and even build relationships while working with others to live up to his full potential.







   It is quite clear that the movie Milk, as many would agree has a direct correspondence to it's openly gay director Gus Van Sant. Many would argue that Van Sant must have felt so much anger or resentment or just simply sympathy thinking about his part, being gay at the time, and being gay now thinking about the progress that has been inspired by Harvey Milk. But ironically they would be wrong. While it is true that of course some emotions must connect to the film, overall Gus Van Sant has been quoted on more than one occasion, throwing this notion out entirely to some extents. When asked about his emotion towards the film, he first explained that he was a director and a man, and that being gay doesn't change his film. Secondly and even more suprisingly, when asked about his emotion and what he was doing on the day Harvey Milk's murder. Van Sant said that he was actually driving across country and had never heard of Harvey Milk until a news report informed Van Sant that a gay City Supervisor in San Francisco had been shot.
    Also while discussing those who took part in making the film I think it is extremely important to at least briefly touch on Sean Penn's opinion. I think that Penn gives a great point of view and  greatly expresses what many and possibly what even Harvey Milk himself may have thought. While also giving many something to think about when looking at the biases that many people have towards the gay community and the faulty grounds these biases stand on.


“I also think it’s important to remember, in the long run, that the tension is not between the gay and the faith community,” Sean notes, “The tension is between a gay community, which is in fact, really is gay and a pseudo-faith community, which has nothing to do with God, love, or anything of real faith. So it’s really just hypocrisy and hatred. So any community that really deserves the title of faith community really won’t have a problem with these issues.”

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