Sean Penn won an Oscar for his portrayal of San Francisco political figure Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant biopic
MILK (Gus Van Sant, 2008)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Sunday, June 9, 2:00, and Monday, June 10, 7:00
Series runs through June 21
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.filminfocus.com
Gus Van Sant’s Milk is a solid if surprisingly standard biopic focusing on the last eight years in the life of Harvey Milk, the gay activist and politician who was assassinated in 1978. Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, To Die For, Good Will Hunting) follows the eventual unofficial Mayor of Castro Street (Sean Penn) as he moves to San Francisco with his much younger partner, Scottie Smith (James Franco), and sets up a camera shop that soon becomes an important meeting ground for the local gay community, fighting for equal rights and supporting Milk as he continually campaigns for public office. The battle hits its high point in 1978 when Milk takes on John Briggs (Denis O’Hare) and the Briggs Initiative, also known as Proposition 6, which sought to take away existing employment rights from gays and lesbians in the California public school system, eerily reminiscent of the recent battle over Proposition 8 there. Although Milk was a rallying figure — his opening mantra was always “My name is Harvey Milk, and I am here to recruit you!” — the film never quite takes off the way it wants to, instead becoming too reverential and melodramatic. Penn, who won an Oscar for his portrayal, is good but subdued in the lead role; the best performance comes from Josh Brolin as Dan White, Milk’s main adversary among the SF supervisors. Milk is screening June 9 & 10 at MoMA as part of the series “Harris Savides: Visual Poet,” which pays tribute to the fashion photographer and cinematographer who died in October 2012 at the age of fifty-five; the festival includes a wide range of works on which he served as director of photography, including Noah Baumbach’s underrated Greenberg, Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, Woody Allen’s Whatever Works, James Gray’s The Yards, David Fincher’s Zodiac, and John Turturro’s Illuminata, with Baumbach, Coppola, Fincher, and Turturro on hand to introduce various screenings.